The Arabic Hermes

oxford studies in late antiquity

Series EditorRalph Mathisen

Late Antiquity has unifi ed what in the past were disparate disciplinary, chronological, and geographical areas of study. Welcoming a wide array of methodological approaches, this book series provides a venue for the fi nest new scholarship on the period, ranging from the later Roman empire to the Byzantine, Sasanid, early Islamic, and early Carolingian worlds.

The Arabic HermesFrom Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science

Kevin van Bladel

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataBladel, Kevin Thomas van.

The Arabic Hermes : from pagan sage to prophet of science / by Kevin van Bladel.p. cm.—(Oxford studies in late antiquity)

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-0-19-537613-5

1. Hermes, Trismegistus. 2. Hermes, Trismegistus—Appreciation—Arab countries. 3. Theosophy. 4. Gnosticism. 5. Science, Ancient. I. Title.

BF1598.H5B53 2009135'.45—dc22 2008050497

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper

This is the fi rst in-depth study devoted to Hermes Trismegistus—the legendary ancient Egyptian sage to whom numerous works on astrology, alchemy, talismans, medicine, and wisdom were attributed—as he is represented in early Arabic litera-ture. By comparison with the now-standard work on the ancient Greek Hermetica (Fowden a), built on decades and even centuries of modern research, this book is a foray into relatively uncharted territories. Readers who are already familiar with the ancient Greek and Latin Hermetica (works attributed to Hermes) will be aware that they played a signifi cant role in the development of late antique thought, both pagan and Christian, and later formed part of the very foundation of medieval, Renaissance, and modern occultism in Europe. The substantial and widespread Arabic tradition of Hermetica, however, has never received much attention, despite a general awareness among Arabists that these Arabic Hermetica did exist and were infl uential. For specialists in Greek and Latin who have little interest in Arabic tradi-tion as such, the Arabic Hermetica promise to contain important information related to and bearing on their own subjects. The myth of Hermes Trismegistus also serves as a prime example of the complicated and wide-ranging adaptation of ancient Greek learning in early Arabic that commenced in the eighth century.

The project began with simple questions. Who did early Arabic writers think Hermes Trismegistus was, and how did they arrive at this concept? What is the rela-tionship of the numerous works attributed to Hermes surviving in Arabic manu-scripts to the better-known Greek and Latin Hermetica? Are the Arabic Hermetica in fact translations of Greek works, or are they inventions in Arabic? In the latter case, what motivated their authors to attribute these texts to Hermes? No deter-mined and comprehensive attempt had hitherto been made to answer these ques-tions, despite the scholarly interest and even popularity of the ancient Hermetica among European and American scholars for several centuries. With a number of important exceptions, I have found mostly speculation about the Arabic Hermetica in scholarly literature. As the project developed, it became clear that the edition, translation, and study of the still mostly unpublished Arabic Hermetica, upon which

Preface

vi Preface

basis several of these questions could be answered—if they could ever be answered—would also require extensive prolegomena. Many preliminary problems required attention before a direct study of the Arabic Hermetica would be feasible. Some of these problems were already present in early Arabic literature, but others were the result of unintentionally misleading modern scholarship. My attempts to obtain a clear basis of understanding have resulted in this book.

A second book, well into preparation, is to follow this one, including an inven-tory of the actual texts attributed to Hermes in Arabic, most of which are still in manuscript, an outline of their chronology, and descriptions of the contents of the majority of them. In short, the work to follow will be a study of the Arabic Hermetica,whereas the present book is a study of the Arabic Hermes, the legendary author and his myth, and the conduits through which Hermes became known in Arabic literary tradition.

Acknowledgments

It is my sincere pleasure to thank the many individuals and institutions that have helped me in this project. Thanks fi rst to Ralph Mathisen for accepting the book in his series, to Stefan Vranka of Oxford University Press for facilitating the entire process, and to the copy editors at the press for their careful work. For various assis-tance by supplying bibliographical or primary source references or discussing with me matters dealt with herein, I am grateful to Mohsen Ashtiany, Persis Berlekamp, Vahid Brown, John Darnell, Racha El-Omari, Garth Fowden, Beatrice Gruendler, Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, Stephan Heilen, Tariq Jaffer, Richard Jasnow, Aaron Johnson, Todd Krulak, Martin Mulsow, Na‘ama Pat-El, David Porreca, Annette Reed, David Reisman, Gabriel Reynolds, Ramzi Rouighi, Shaul Shaked, Isabel Toral-Niehoff, Paul E. Walker, Steven Wasserstrom, Edward Watts, Christian Wildberg, Witold Witakowski, and all who attended the Yale Arabic Colloquium on December , . I would like to single out for special thanks Emilie Savage-Smith for provid-ing detailed information about several Hermetic manuscripts that had escaped my attention; Shawkat Toorawa for his successful search on my behalf, in the middle of his own research and restrictions of time, in the Asafi yah library in Hyderabad; and Hossein Kamaly for his invaluable delivery of reproductions of Hermetic manu-scripts in Iran, also while pressed by his own research and time limits. The anony-mous readers for the press deserve thanks of their own for helpful suggestions on drafts of the book. Some of these colleagues will see the full fruit of their assistance not in this book, but in the one to follow.

The late Franz Rosenthal from the outset gave his encouragement and allowed me to photocopy the relevant section of his handwritten and unpublished edition of al-Mubaššir ibn Fātik’s Muh

tār al-hikam (on this abortive edition see Rosenthal

–), which helped my work on the wise sayings of Hermes. Paolo Lucentini introduced me to current European scholarship on Hermetic traditions by gener-ously facilitating my visit to the Convegno Internazionale sulla Tradizione Ermetica dal Mondo Tardo-Antico all’Umanesimo in November of . I thank him again for his hospitality then. Everett Rowson, Charles Burnett, and Alexander Treiger

viii Acknowledgments

deserve special thanks for reading different drafts of the manuscript very closely and offering numerous critical suggestions for improvement and crucial bibliographic assistance. Most of all, I am grateful to Dimitri Gutas, whose historical understand-ing and linguistic expertise made him an ideal mentor for me as I wrote the PhD dissertation from which this book has grown (Hermes Arabicus, Yale University ). His demand for precision and his eye for detail saved me from countless mistakes.

Despite the assistance of so many friends and teachers, this book remains my own, along with all the errors lingering in it.

My gratitude is also due to the Beinecke Rare Book Library for a summer fellow-ship and to the Yale Graduate School for support with a John F. Enders Fellowship and a Robert M. Leylan Fellowship in the early stages of the work. A National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend awarded in helped me to collect quite a few more reproductions of Arabic Hermetic texts in manuscript. Any views, fi ndings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily refl ect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. A semester as a member in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in the fall of , and my term as a Visiting Research Scholar at New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World beginning in January of , made for excellent conditions for thoroughly revising and increasing substantially what I had written.

Shilarna Stokes, my wife, has helped to make my life a better one than it was when I began this project. Without her encouragement and patience this would have taken even longer to publish. Her suggestions to improve the clarity of the text have touched on many pages. And to my parents, who never dissuaded me from a career in such arcane matters, I dedicate the work.

Contents

Note on Documentation and Transliteration xi

Part I Background

1. Introduction 3 1.1 The Ancient Greek Hermetica of Roman Egypt

and Their European Reception 4 1.2 The Reception of the Greek Hermetica in Antiquity 10 1.3 The Birth of Arabic Scholarship and the Books

of the Ancients in Baġdād 14 1.4 Understanding the Terms Hermetic and Hermetism

in the Arabic Context 17

2. Hermes in Sasanian Iran 23 2.1 Evidence for Hermes in Sasanian Magical Texts 25 2.2 The Hermes of the Sasanian Astrologers 27 2.3 The Later Testimonies of Sasanian Translation

from Greek into Middle Persian 30 2.4 Some Supposedly Sasanian Horoscopes 39 2.5 Hermetica in the Time of Šāpūr I 41 2.6 Ostanes and the Magi 48 2.7 Ostanes and Hermes in Arabic 54 2.8 The Hymn of the Pearl and the Iranian History of Science 58 2.9 The Role of Alexander in the Iranian History of Science 58 2.10 Conclusions 62

3. Hermes and the Sābians of Harrān 64 3.1 Introduction to the Problem of the “S ābians” 66 3.2 A Harrānian Platonic School? 70 3.3 The Alleged Infl uence of Harrānian Hermetica 79 3.4 The Evidence for a Harrānian Sābian Transmission of the Hermetica 83

x Contents

3.5 The End of the Harrānian Sābians 104 3.6 Conclusions 113

Appendix to Chapter 3. The Harrānians and India 115

Part II History of the Arabic Hermes

4. The Three Hermeses 1214.1 The Earliest Form of the Arabic Legend of Three Hermeses 1224.2 Ancient Greek Antecedents to the Arabic Legend 1324.3 A Trail of Chronicles 1354.4 Annianus in Syriac and Arabic 1394.5 Abu- Ma<šar as a Chronographer 1474.6 Other Aspects of the Hermes Legend 1554.7 The Third Hermes 1574.8 Conclusions 161

5. Hermes the Prophet 1645.1 The Heavenly Ascent of Hermes 1645.2 Hermes the Lawgiver: Hermes as Presented by al-Mubaššir ibn Fātik 1845.3 The Wisdom of the Arabic Hermes 1965.4 The Synthesis in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries and Beyond 219

6. Conclusion: The Making of the Arabic Hermes 234

Bibliography 241

Index 267

xi

Note on Documentation

and Transliteration

Scholars of classical languages usually cite works according to standard editions, a set of standard abbreviations, and numbers keyed to a universally accepted division of the sections of a text. Using these, anyone who wishes to check a citation can eas-ily fi nd it in any research library. For those working on the Greek and Latin authors studied most during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these standards work well. However, a large number of the texts cited in the following pages—even some of the Greek ones—are available only in publications hard to fi nd even in a well-stocked research library. When it comes to Arabic works, there are few if any stan-dard editions and fewer still critical editions. Middle Eastern presses regularly reprint old editions with new typesetting and pagination so that standardized enu-merations of a text’s sections are practically impossible. Many editions of Arabic works represent no more than the readings of one or a small number of manu-scripts, without any editorial method other than to arrive at a legible text. Typographical errors abound.

Much of the research presented here naturally depends on the precise wording of texts in Arabic and other less well known languages of late antiquity. In order to make my arguments convincing, I have deemed it important to save the scholarly reader the trouble of searching for dozens of rare books by providing as much docu-mentation in the original words as possible without, I hope, overwhelming the main body of the text. For the reader who is not concerned with this documentation, it may simply be passed over. In many instances I have added the proper chapter and section numbers of Arabic works, in addition to the page and line numbers of the text that I had at hand, because these are a surer guide to the location of a passage than the pagination of any given printing.

Words and names transliterated from Arabic and other Semitic languages fol-low most of the conventions of European scholarship on Arabic, adhering as much as possible to the principle of one sign for every phoneme. Those who do not know Arabic may note the following basic pronunciations of transliterated signs.

xii Note on Documentation and Transliteration

t- as in “think”d- as in “this”g as in “gymnasium”ġ a voiced velar fricative similar to French “r”h˘ a voiceless velar fricative, as in Scottish loch

š as in “shake”> a glottal stop as in Cockney “bottle” (bo’el)< the ‘ayn, a voiced pharyngeal approximant, for which a glottal stop may be

substituted as a foreigner’s convenience

Most other diacritics on letters are for the Arabist and the student of Arabic; they may be ignored by the rest.

All dates are given according to the Common Era. To rely on the Muslim higrīera, counting lunar years beginning in 622 ce, makes no sense in a work dealing as much with the period before as after the higra. There are many books of tables, computer programs, and Internet sites that can convert any Common Era date into the higrī equivalent for the interested reader.

PART I

Background

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1

Introduction

Early arabic accounts tell of an ancient egyptian sagenamed Hermes Triplicate-in-Wisdom, the founder of the pagan religion before the great Flood, a lawgiver who ascended to the heavenly spheres of the planets and returned to teach astrology, a true prophet like Jesus and Muhammad. The teach-ings of this wise Hermes circulated in Arabic translation, having been handed down, as the accounts said, over long ages by the great philosophers of the past, such as Aristotle and Apollonius of Tyana, or after being rediscovered inscribed on tablets in subterranean chambers of Egyptian ruins. The Arabic books of Hermes claim to explain the hidden workings of the universe, the secrets of creation, and the myster-ies of nature. They offer means to predict the future from astral omens, instructions for the manufacture of potent talismans, and encrypted directions for manufactur-ing the elixir of the alchemists. To this day many of these works survive intact, wait-ing for modern readers in dozens of Arabic manuscripts. Most of them have never been printed.

Both the legends about Hermes and the works attributed to him in Arabic pres-ent complicated puzzles for the historian. They are part of the rich product of late antiquity out of which early Arabic culture, in all its aspects, grew, and one piece of the enormous body of knowledge translated into Arabic from the books of the ancients (as they called them), on which much of Arabic literature was based. To unravel this tradition of many strands is a manifold task. It is not enough to under-stand the Arabic context, even if that alone is diffi cult and the subject of ongoing research. One must also look back to the ancient background from which the Arabic Hermetica came into being, and forward to their celebrated reception in fi fteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe, which has endowed them with a special importance for modern scholarship in European languages. At the same time, interest in the Hermetica reached far beyond Europe, where there are totally unexplored avenues of research and untold histories. Works of Hermes never known in Europe were copied and studied from Morocco to India, surviving today in mosque collections and national and private libraries of North Africa and Asia. For example, as late as

Background

the nineteenth century, an Iranian intellectual could still fi nd it worth his while to translate an alchemical revelation of Hermes claiming ancient Egyptian origins from Arabic into his mother tongue, Persian.1 When the British government of India purchased the remains of the Royal Library of the fallen Muġal Emperors in Delhi in 1859, there were Arabic works of Hermes among those thousands of vol-umes.2 What these Hermetic texts, and the fi gure of Hermes Trismegistus himself, meant to their numerous audiences in far-fl ung lands remains to be discovered. It is certain, however, that the European Hermetic movement that began in the late fi f-teenth century is only one part of something much greater, at the center of which, geographically and chronologically, is the Arabic tradition.

1.1 The Ancient Greek Hermetica of Roman Egypt and Their European Reception

Sometime in the fi rst centuries of the Common Era, certain anonymous sages in Roman Egypt, apparently over several generations, wrote treatises on science and philosophy in Greek while professing to be part of a distinctly Egyptian tradition.3

A number of these works portray dialogues between various Egyptian gods, some given Greek names and others retaining their Egyptian names. The principal char-acter in these texts is Hermes, the Greek syncretic equivalent of the Egyptian god of knowledge and writing, Thoth. Hermes usually appears as the teacher of the other characters in the dialogues, including Tat, Ammon, and Asclepius. From the main teacher we take the name of the texts as a group: Hermetica, writings having to do with Hermes. The Hermes here is often dubbed Sqirlå cirso|, Trismegistus, the “thrice-greatest,” an epithet in loan translation from an old Egyptian title of Thoth, found fi rst in Greek in the usage of Egyptian priests of the Ptolemaic period as lå cirso| ja≠ låcirso| heø| lå ca|, “greatest and greatest great god.”4 In this way the Egyptian Hermes is distinguished from the mischievous Olympian messenger god Hermes of Greek mythology.

The Greek Hermetica of Roman Egypt deal with a wide range of topics, includ-ing astrology, cosmology, and medicine. They describe a philosophical education, revealed by Hermes and others on the basis of divine insights, through which his disciples could know and understand the soul, the universe, and God. Garth Fowden has neatly summarized the cosmos taught in the Hermetica:

God is one, and the creator of all things, which continue to depend on God as elements in a hierarchy of beings. Second in this hierarchy after God

1. Translation by Mīrzā Āqā Muhammad <Alī Garakānī, manuscript in the Kitābxāna-yi Millī-yi Malik 805/6, 1875 ce. The Arabic text is edited with a German translation (Vereno 1992: 160–181).

2. On the Delhi collection see Ursula Sims-Williams 1982.3. On the search for the authors of the Hermetica see Fowden 1993a: 155–195.4. Festugière 1.73–74, Copenhaver 1992: xiv–xv, Fowden 1993a: 216–217.

Introduction

himself comes the intelligible world, and then the sensible world. The cre-ative and benefi cent powers of God fl ow through the intelligible and sensible realms to the sun, which is the demiurge around which revolve the eight spheres of the fi xed stars, the planets and the earth.5 From these spheres depend the daemons, and from the daemons Man, who is a microcosm of creation. Thus everything is part of God, and God is in everything, his cre-ative activity continuing unceasingly. All things are one and the pleroma of being is indestructible.6

Human beings are constrained in the hierarchy of cosmic sympathies and subject to the force of the daemons; that is, they are bound in the cosmos by fate. Altogether, these ideas were not unique to the authors of the Hermetica. One could say they were, in varying forms, popular ideas around the Mediterranean under Roman rule. But what makes the Hermetica special is their response to the situation of humans in the world. The Egyptian Hermes imparts two kinds of knowledge in his books. First, it is possible to gain a degree of power in and control over the terrestrial world through a knowledge of the sympathetic harmony of the celestial forces with par-ticular terrestrial things. Thus Hermes teaches, for example, the interpretation of heavenly signs for the prognostication of the future, as well as the occult properties of substances, such as different plants, and the astral powers they possess from their planetary sympathies. Modern scholars have called such treatises technical because they explain techniques for the application of the knowledge of the principles and forces at work in the universe to daily life and practical problems. Second, and more famously, Hermes teaches his disciples in the dialogues how to transcend their bodily circumstances and to overcome fate through purifi cation of the intellect and con-templation, leading to a true knowledge of God.7 Much of the appeal in the dis-courses of Hermes lies in this promise of higher knowledge of a greater, divine self liberated from worldly conditions through a developed understanding, and this goal must partly have motivated the anonymous community that composed these texts.

The Greek Hermetica best known today are of the latter type, the philosophical dialogues. They came to the attention of scholars in the Latin tradition of Western Europe in 1460, when a monk named Leonardo brought a manuscript of Greek Hermetic texts to Cosimo de’ Medici in Florence from somewhere in Macedonia.8

The scholar Marsilio Ficino was asked to set aside his translation of the works of Plato and to give precedence to Hermes, who was thought to be much more ancient

5. For the apparently heliocentric view, which has no role in the Arabic reception of Hermetica, see CH 16.7. Scott 2.444–445 suggests that the view is rather that the sun occupies the middle of the seven geocentric spheres, but it is not clear.

6. Fowden 1993a: 77.7. Fowden 1993a: 75–115.8. Rigo 2002 offers evidence for scholarly interest in works attributed to Hermes in Byzantium

from the fourteenth century.

Background

than the classical Greek authors. His translation was published in 1471, and over the next century and a half this Latin version of the Greek Hermetica went through twenty-fi ve editions.9 The editio princeps of the Greek original was produced by Adrianus Turnebus in 1554. Greeted with extraordinary interest, the Greek Hermetica were thought during this period to derive from before the great Flood or at least to be contemporary with Moses, and to represent the primordial, original wellspring of philosophy. They were therefore regarded as authorities on a par with the book of Genesis, a discovery of utmost importance. Renaissance authors used them as source texts for a new movement that blended Neoplatonism, Jewish Cabbala, and the teachings of the Hermetica into a system of thought called Hermetism today. Historians have amply documented the deep infl uence of these works on scholars in Western Europe from the end of the fi fteenth through the seventeenth century, and more marginally thereafter until the present.10

The beginning of the end of Hermetic popularity was in 1614, when Isaac Casaubon showed that the Greek Hermetica were not so ancient as had been thought, but rather were apparently derivative products of the early Christian era. Although his arguments did not become widely known immediately, the prestige of the Hermetica declined markedly by the end of the century as Casaubon’s research had its effect.11 Hermann Conring, a professor of medicine at the University of Helmstedt, argued in 1648 against the claims to a Hermetic legacy made by the alchemist followers of Paracelsus.12 Casaubon, Conring, and others after them effectively dispelled the aura of primordial authenticity around the Hermetica themselves as well as the supposed ongoing heritage of those texts. Following these and other attacks, the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries witnessed a low ebb of interest in the Hermetica, though Egyptomaniacs, alche-mists, members of secret societies, and those involved in currents of esoteric thought continued to use and study them. Between 1630 and 1856 there were no new editions or reprints of the Greek text of the Hermetica brought to light by Ficino, a sure sign of attenuated scholarly interest.13 The Hermetic movement cre-ated in the sixteenth century diminished greatly during the subsequent period of “scientifi c revolution,” when scholars relied less and less on ancient writings for scientifi c authority.

It was only with the new methods and purposes of classical scholarship devel-oped in the nineteenth century that the Greek Hermetica found a restored place in

9. Yates 1964: 12–13, Mahé 1982: 3–5, Faivre 1995: 183.10. For overviews of the reception of this Greek corpus in Western Europe until Isaac Casaubon

disproved its antiquity in 1614, see Mahé 1982: 5–9, Fowden 1993a: xxi, Faivre 1995: 183–188, Yates 1964, to be tempered by Copenhaver 1990, Kühlmann 1999, and Ebeling 2007: 59–141. These works provide copious bibliography.

11. Mahé 1982: 8–9, Fowden 1993a: xxii, Faivre 1995: 186, Yates 1964: 398–403.12. Ebeling 2007: 97–100.13. Copenhaver 1992: li.

Introduction

respected research, now not as sources of inspiration and esoteric teachings but as historical artifacts to be fi tted into a detailed and comprehensive record of Greek and Roman “civilizations,” then a new framework of study. For some practitioners of the newly developing fi eld of religious studies, the Hermetica became docu-ments of an alleged perennial philosophy and sources for structuralist schemes. The occultists of the Romantic and Modern eras also found their own interest in these texts.

For much of the twentieth century the scholarly effort to explain the Hermetica as products of a historical context remained inconclusive. The debate about them effectively centered on determining to which “nation” they belonged, whether they were essentially Greek and therefore European or “Western,” or Egyptian and Oriental and therefore foreign, and secondarily on whether or not a particular defi ned community produced them. If a group of authors could be found, then ascertaining their relationship to other religious movements, construed broadly as Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism, and paganism, would help to give them their historical place. (Today these broad categories seem somewhat simplistic.) The monumental labor of Festugière in the 1940s and ’50s seemed to show defi nitively that the Hermetica were, in fact, totally Hellenistic in content and form and owed nothing essential to non-Greek cultures. He wrote four volumes to prove his point.14

In the late 1970s and the 1980s, studies by Jean-Pierre Mahé and Garth Fowden argued that there is indeed something distinctively Egyptian in them, and that they can be really understood only when we place them in the context of Hellenistic Egypt and indigenous Egyptian cultural tradition.15 Mahé hypothesized that the Greek texts are descendants of the Egyptian genre of aphoristic instructions.16

Fowden showed convincingly that one cannot understand the genesis of the Hermetica without locating them within the social contexts of Roman Egypt. His well-documented arguments make the Hermetica neither essentially Greek nor Egyptian but the product of a Roman Egyptian society that had synthesized prac-tices and ideas current in both of these linguistic, cultural, and religious traditions, a society that must be understood without an easy separation of “Greek” and “Egyptian” characteristics. It seems safe to say that our present understanding of the Greek Hermetica stands with Fowden.

14. Festugière 1944–1954.15. A convenient history of the reception of and scholarship on the Greek Hermetica in Western

Europe is found in Mahé 1982: 3–43, culminating in Mahé’s own work. For some later work see Fowden 1993a: xiii–xix. Gonzáles Blanco 1984 is also useful as an overview of the history of scholarship on the subject of the Hermetica and Hermetism.

16. Mahé 1978–1982: 2.407–436. Mahé argues that what began originally as sentences or aphorisms of Hermes were developed into the Hermetic logoi of the dialogues. Against Mahé on this see Fowden 1993a: 69–74.

Background

Further research in Egyptology may well be able to elucidate more tangible local roots of the Hermetica in the scrolls of the Egyptian priests of the Roman period.17

Indeed, direct evidence of a possible Egyptian literary background to the Hermetica has recently emerged. In 2005 two Egyptologists, Richard Jasnow and Karl-Theodor Zauzich, published an edition of a Demotic Egyptian text containing a dialogue of instruction between the god Thoth and a student, called mr-rx, “lover of knowledge” or perhaps “philosopher.” The manuscripts, many incomplete pieces of what was once apparently a long text kept in Egyptian temple libraries, have been dated approximately to the period from the fi rst century bce to the second century ce. This is just the period during which the Greek Hermetica are generally supposed to have had their genesis. Because the contents of this Demotic Book of Thoth (so dubbed by its editors) do not exhibit an “admixture of hellenistic philosophy,” as the Greek Hermetica clearly do, the editors of the text have prudently concluded that the work is not a direct ancestor of the Greek Hermetica, though it may be rather “one of the grandfathers” of the Greek Hermetica.18 Both are dialogues between Thoth-Hermes and a pupil on theological subjects, so it is easy to imagine a connection between them, but no convincing parallel has yet been discovered, either in wording or in doctrine, despite the editors’ best efforts to do so. The assessment of the ancient author of the De mysteriis Aegyptiorum was that “those documents . . . which circulate under the name of Hermes contain Hermetic doctrines, even if they often employ the terminology of the philosophers; for they were translated from the Egyptian tongue by men not unversed in philosophy.”19 This view now seems more likely to win the day than ever before, but it will certainly require a careful comparative study by a scholar at home in both Egyptology, particularly in Demotic Egyptian, and ancient Greek. Perhaps undiscovered Egyptian texts will contribute further to solv-ing the problem of the formation of the Greek Hermetica.

Even within Greek literature itself, there are still unexplored avenues for schol-arly research. The title Corpus Hermeticum is normally used to refer only to the Greek philosophical Hermetica brought to light in fi fteenth-century Italy (though often in practice it also includes the text surviving complete only in Latin translation

17. Boylan 1922 is still a standard treatment of the ancient Egyptian tradition of Thoth. Iversen’s essay (1984) is a notable attempt to connect Egyptian literature with the Hermetica; although fi nding some important parallels in content, it admittedly does not show how the older Egyptian ideas could have been transmitted into Greek. Fowden 1993a: 57–68 offers much interesting information to illustrate the Egyptian background. The arguments of Kingsley 1993 for the etymology of the Hermetic name Poimandres (based on a proposal by Francis L. Griffi th in 1925) are interesting although probably impossible to verify; one would like the etymological portions of the article to be reviewed by an Egyptologist-Coptologist knowledgeable in Egyptian phonology.

18. Jasnow and Zauzich 1998: 618. Edition by Jasnow and Zauzich 2005. Cf. Mahé 1996.19. Usually the text is attributed to Iamblichus (Saffrey 1971). Trans. by Emma C. Clarke, John

M. Dillon, and Jackson P. Hershbell 2004. s� lçm c�q fieqælema „| <Eqlo’ èqla∫j�| peqiåvei dæna|, eÆ

ja≠ s© sËm fiikoræfixm ck›ssz pokk�ji| vqûsai· lesacåcqapsai c�q �pø sû| AÆctps¨a| ck›ssg| Õp\

�mdqËm fiikorofi¨a| oÃj �pe¨qx| évæmsxm (De Mysteriis, 8.4.265).

Introduction

known as the Asclepius, and other related fragments), for it is these texts that enjoyed such celebrity when they came to the attention of early modern Europeans. However, there are quite a few more works attributed to Hermes surviving in Greek than just these philosophical discourses, contrary to the implication in the authority- granting and comprehensive-sounding title Corpus.20 Although specialists do take them all into account, the recent English translations of the Corpus Hermeticum do not include the important and substantial Greek excerpts of Hermetic dialogues found in the Stobaean Anthology.21 The Greek texts attributed to Hermes dealing with omens, the use of the occult properties of substances, and related practices—as opposed to theoretical discussions, philosophy, and descriptions of meditations such as those found in the Greek Corpus Hermeticum—are even more neglected, practically unknown. The modern view of the Greek Hermetica is largely focused on a limited section of what was and indeed is still available.22

Understanding the Hermetica requires also that works attributed to Hermes in languages other than Greek be taken into account, and again specialists have not failed to notice them. The Coptic translations of Greek Hermetica, discovered in the Nag< Hammādī codices, have by now received much well-deserved attention.23 Some of these Hermetica in Coptic do not survive in their original Greek, and they were not published until the 1970s. One of these previously unknown texts is a dialogue in which Trismegistus initiates his disciple into the ineffable mysteries of the mind, instructing him to inscribe the teaching in hieroglyphic characters and to head the text with an oath to protect its contents from misuse. The Coptic codex also includes a substantial portion of the Perfect Discourse, surviving also in the Latin translation known as Asclepius. The latter version has attracted students in the Latin tradition in ancient, medieval, and modern times.24 The Armenian Hermetic text called TheDefi nitions of Hermes, translated from Greek and with later interpolations, has been

20. A survey of the extant Greek Hermetica is found in Fowden 1993a: 1–11, most of the discussion there being devoted to the collection of the Greek philosophical Hermetica.

21. Scott vol. 1 contains English versions of these.22. On the inseparability of the ancient Hermetica prescribing techniques from the better-known

ones concerned with theory, see the remarks of Fowden 1993a: 116–120. Examples of published “technical Hermetica,” include the Iatromathematica (Ideler 1841: 1.387–396); two short works: OnEarthquakes (Pitra 1888: 275–278 and CCAG 7.167–171) and To Asclepius on the Plants of the Seven Planets (Pitra 1888: 279–282 = CCAG 8/3.153–165); the < Ieq� B¨bko| (Pitra 1888: 284–290; Ruelle 1908); To Asclepius on the Plants of the Twelve Zodiacal Signs (Pitra 1888: 291); a Brontologion (CCAG 7.226–230); and the Låhodo| eÆ| p�ram jasaqvñm (CCAG 8/1.172–177). Festugière, vol. 1, studied several of these. There is still no historical study of these texts more advanced than the notes by Pingree 1978: 2.429–432.Alchemical excerpts from Hermes are listed by Festugière 1.251 and Letrouit 1995: 81. There are probably more short Greek Hermetica of these types to be found in Greek manuscripts.

23. Mahé 1978–1982; the standard edition is Nag Hammadi Codices V, 2–5 and VI with Papyrus Berolinensis 8502,1 and 4, 1979.

24. On the Latin readership of the Asclepius in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries see most recently Porreca 2001, which contains an up-to-date bibliography for the medieval Latin reception of this text.

Background

edited and studied by Mahé; Armenian authors from the sixth century onward cited it.25 There is also a large number of medieval Latin Hermetica; these need research not only on their contents and doctrines, but also on their relationship to the Hermetica in other languages. Fortunately a new series of studies organized by Paolo Lucentini under the name Hermes Latinus has appeared, seeking to fi ll this gap, pub-lished in the series Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevalis.26 With the help of these new editions and studies of the European Latin Hermetica of the Middle Ages, one can begin to reach an idea of what was already available in Latin Europe before the Greek Corpus Hermeticum was published in Latin in the late fi fteenth century.

The present book is aimed at the least understood part of Hermetic tradition. There are probably more works attributed to Hermes surviving in Arabic than in any other language, and the majority of them are still unknown and unpublished. Some of them defi nitely derive from ancient Greek sources through translation. Others, like many of the Latin Hermetica, are later works originally composed in Arabic. Yet even where the texts themselves are not of ancient origin, the idea of Hermes is. The problem then is to establish the means and continuity of tradition from the ancient Hermetica, and what people thought about Hermes, to the time of their attestation in Arabic.

The fi rst principle for researchers in Graeco-Arabic studies, as Dimitri Gutas defi ned it, is a matter of common sense: nothing was translated from Greek into Arabic unless it was available in manuscripts to the translators.27 Put differently, the Arabic reception of works in translation from Greek, as well as from other lan-guages, is a product of the period now generally called late antiquity. It is funda-mental therefore to trace the history of the Hermetica and their reception, insofar as we can discern them, down to the time of the Arabic translators in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. One way to sketch the earlier history of the texts is to notice who mentions them and for what purpose. At the same time it is possible to arrive at a general idea of the interest readers had in the Hermetica down to that time.

1.2 The Reception of the Greek Hermetica in Antiquity

A complete history of the reception of the Hermetica is still required, but for now a brief chronological outline of the early readership of these texts in antiquity will

25. Mahé 1978–1982: 2.273–406; his English translation with bibliography is found in Salaman et al. 2000: 99–124.

26. Lucentini and Perrone Compagni 2001 present an outline of all the Latin Hermetica, editions, manuscripts, and basic bibliography. The Hermes Latinus Internet site outlines future plans and past projects.

27. Gutas 1994: 4941–4944.

Introduction

have to suffi ce. What follows is based largely on the useful collection of testimonia by Scott, completed by A. S. Ferguson; the reader may fi nd complete textual refer-ences there.28 The nature of these testimonia is largely doxographic, so they tell us mostly about the reception of the philosophical Hermetica by theologians, whose works survive in large number, whereas exceedingly little is known about the history and use of the technical Hermetica. One may assume that works of Hermes on astral divination and the occult properties of substances continued to circulate among scientists and astrologers without hiatus.

We know little for certain about the original community or communities that produced the Greek Hermetica, except that they were pagans in Roman Egypt who saw their teachings as distinctly Egyptian.29 It seems likely to me that they included members of the Egyptian priesthood.30 Whether one imagines them as a philosoph-ical sect or a religious movement depends on how one defi nes those terms.31 The earliest external references to Hermes Trismegistus as an authoritative fi gure come into view in early Christian writings of the second and third centuries. Athenagoras (late second cent.) cites a passage of an unknown Hermetic work to support the well-known antipagan argument that the beings worshipped as gods by the poly-theists were all really men of bygone times. Tertullian (fl . ca 200) points to the limits of human knowledge when he says that not even Hermes, “the master of all natural philosophers,” could explain the origin of matter. One can see from such a remark that even from the beginnings of the attestation of the Hermetica, authors who knew them believed them to be very ancient. The pseudo-Justin who wrote the Cohortatio ad gentiles (third cent.) provides the earliest citation of what would become Hermes Trismegistus’ most popular words for theologians: “It is diffi cult to understand God, but for the one who does, he is impossible to describe.” Non-Christians read the Hermetica, too. Around 300, in Egypt, the early alchemist

28. Scott, vol. 4, remains an exceptional resource for studying the reception of the Hermetica not only in Greek and Latin but also in Syriac and Arabic. Yates 1964: 1–19, presents an impressively lucid discussion of the ways in which Renaissance scholars treated the authority of Latin Church Fathers on the Hermetica. Fowden 1993a: 196–212 deals with the late antique reception of the Hermetica outside of Egypt down to the fi fth century.

29. Fowden 1993a: 168–176.30. Bagnall 1993: 261–273 shows that traditional Egyptian temple life began to disintegrate in the

third century, and that this is therefore apparently not caused directly by the success of Christianity. Bagnall suggests rather that the decline was due to lack of fi nancial support from the government. For context see also Frankfurter 1998.

31. Mahé 2007: 797 says that the Egyptian Hermetic community constituted “an actual religious movement with a deep social impact, based on congregations quite similar to Gnostic communities.” The claim that they had ritual congregations appears to be based on the idea that the descriptions of Hermes’ initiations of his students in the Hermetic dialogues refl ect the actual practices of the people who wrote and read these texts. Thus also Salaman et al. 2000: 84: “A balanced view of the Corpus will recognize its indebtedness to the vocabulary of its milieu. One can imagine men and women of diverse backgrounds joining Hermetic associations in Alexandria.” I am less willing to make these assumptions, though the theory that the Hermetic dialogues describe actual practices remains possible.

Background

Zosimus of Panopolis demonstrated his familiarity with “sacred books” of Hermes and quoted Hermetica in his works, which survive in the original Greek and in Syriac translation. According to some evidence, works of Hermes were also trans-lated into Middle Persian already in the third century, in the court of the Iranian emperor Šāpūr I (d. 270), along with works of Ptolemy, Dorotheus, and other astrol-ogers. Chapter 2 deals with this Persian reception of the Hermetica and the attempt to establish its date.

The Christian Arnobius, at the beginning of the fourth century, included Mercurius (Latin for Hermes) among the pagan philosophers against whom he was arguing. His student Lactantius took a different approach, citing philosophical Greek Hermetica to make the case that God is one and truly above the world. This is the earliest example of what became a common use of the Hermetica: citing the pagan philosopher Hermes in support of Christian theology. For centuries thereaf-ter, late antique and medieval Christians used the Hermetica for apologetic pur-poses.32 The Hermetic treatise The Perfect Discourse, which survives complete only in a fourth-century Latin compilation known as Asclepius, contains a prophecy about the lamented decline of Egyptian religion and culture, but it was used by Christian writers to prove that paganism was doomed to extinction. Meanwhile the pagan theurgist who wrote the De mysteriis Aegyptiorum, thought to be Iamblichus,33

also mined the Hermetica for materials suitable to his own pagan theology. The fourth-century Syriac poet Ephraem claimed that the Manichaeans, too, considered Hermes one of their prophet’s forerunners. Coptic translations of Hermetica are found in the Nag< Hammādī codices from the mid-fourth century, showing that Egyptian sages read Hermetica in translation in their own language. The fi fth- century anthology of literature and wisdom of the pagan Stobaeus includes some of the most important extant Greek Hermetica. Hypatia’s father, Theon of Alexandria (fl . ca 364), is supposed to have taught the astronomical works of Hermes, and her friend Synesius, bishop of Cyrene, listed Hermes as one of the four greatest sages of ancient times. Hermes appears at the end of the sixth century in more generic col-lections of the sayings of ancient philosophers in Greek and in Syriac. The Syriac collection is especially interesting because it is directed against the obstinately pagan inhabitants of the Syrian city Harrān (Carrhae). (On this work, see section 3.4.1,page 83 in this volume.) In the early fi fth century, Cyril of Alexandria had used Hermes to similar effect in his book refuting the emperor Julian and his treatise against the Christians.

Such a rapid survey cannot do justice to the use and abuse of the Hermetica in their reception. Each author had his own purposes in using Hermes for an argu-ment, and these need to be understood individually according to their proper con-texts. What should be clear, however, from the collection of these references is that

32. Ebeling 2007: 38–44 offers a brief summary of the medieval Christian uses of the Hermetica.33. Saffrey 1971.

Introduction

Hermetica, not all of which survive today, were read, excerpted, and appreciated widely during the third, fourth, and fi fth centuries, and applied to a variety of ten-dentious theological arguments often not in harmony with their original purposes. The Hermetica had authority as seemingly authentic documents of an ancient Egyptian wisdom, and that authority is what made them valuable to authors beyond the unknown Egyptians that produced them. It is not clear, however, how many readers really saw the Hermetica directly themselves, as opposed to mere citations handed down through other authors or excerpts in anthologies. Moreover, as Fowden puts it, the “way of Hermes” created and followed by the Roman Egyptian authors of the Hermetica might have been “appreciated outside Egypt, as by Iamblichus, but was not so far as we know put into practice.”34 In other words, the Hermetica really had become documents of a philosophical and spiritual training the specifi cs of which belonged to a bygone era. After the fourth century, there is no more sign of a living community of devoted successors to the “original” Graeco-Egyptian authors and students of the Hermetica.35

References to Hermetica as authoritative sources of theological arguments con-tinued to appear even when Byzantine power was replaced by the Arab kingdom in the Middle East during the seventh century. For example, by the year 700, Jacob of Edessa quoted with approval the views of Hermes Trismegistus on God’s creation of the sun in his Syriac Hexaemeron.36 In this case it is unlikely that he was familiar with Hermetica directly. Probably he found these passages in the treatise of Cyril just mentioned. Yet for him, it was worth citing Hermes to make a point. Also by this time someone had translated the philosophical defi nitions of Hermes into Armenian.37 Hermes had become a mysterious ancient sage, whose wise words of higher understanding were known partly from citations and were used to bolster religious arguments. He was known in many languages at different times: Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, and Middle Persian.

The Arabic reception of Hermes, as an idea and an author, began in the eighth century, in a world very different from that in which the Hermetica had fi rst circu-lated. By that time the Byzantine polity was reduced to parts of Anatolia and the Balkans, replaced everywhere else by the new Arab empire of unprecedented size. There was a new ruling religion, as well as a new common language, and a new tra-dition of scholarship was taking shape. To understand the Arabic Hermes, it is nec-essary to have some idea of the larger context of this early Arabic scholarship.

34. Fowden 1993a: 212.35. Fowden 1993a: 175–176 describes papyrus letters of the fourth century mentioning Hermes

Trismegistus with reverence.36. Jacob of Edessa, Hexaemeron, 149b11–150a17. Cf. Cyril, Contra Julianum 588A-B; cited also in

Scott 1.546, 31 and 33; again with the entire passage from Cyril in Scott 4.214.3–216.1; CH 4.138–141, 32band 33.

37. Mahé, in Salaman et al. 2000: 101, dates the Armenian translation to the second half of the sixth century.

Background

1.3 The Birth of Arabic Scholarship and the Books of the Ancients in Bag

.da-d

The Arab conquests and the resulting empire have been treated in many studies, and historians have proposed many theories, not all of them mutually compatible, to explain these momentous events. Readers new to the subject will fi nd excellent nar-rative overviews elsewhere.38 What follows here is only the briefest possible back-ground to orient readers unfamiliar with the world of letters in which the Arabic Hermetica fi rst appear.

The 620s and 630s were marked by devastating wars between the Persian and East Roman Empires and by apocalyptic sentiments across the Eastern Mediterranean and Southwest Asia. In these decades, the diverse populations of Arabia united as a new community following the teaching of the prophet Muh ammad of Mecca, who warned through his revelation of God’s imminent judgment at the end of the world and offered divine laws to his community. After Muhammad’s death, his commu-nity followed the prophet’s successors, the caliphs. Sedentary and pastoralist alike, the Arabian peoples, along with allies joining them at every stage, collaborated in the conquest of one half of the former Roman Empire and the entire Sasanian Persian Empire, both of which had weakened defenses after the previous three decades of intense warfare. The Arab conquests of the lands from the Iberian pen-insula to Central Asia were not nearly as rapid as some histories make them seem, but were carried out through several generations of institutionalized warfare. The conquerors had to adapt to new and different physical and social environments and to manage their ever-increasing wealth, property on a scale totally unfamiliar to their recent ancestors. This fi rst century (the seventh to eighth centuries ce) there-fore brought many changes to the Arabic-speaking populations now scattered in a far-reaching diaspora as a ruling élite. The pattern of caliphal succession, though always contested, especially by supporters of leaders from the family of the prophet, became in the fi rst century essentially dynastic under the Umayyads, a different albeit related family, and the caliphs became effectively kings of an immense empire. The religion of the community following Muhammad came soon to be defi ned as Islām—a term that had earlier referred to conversion Muh ammad’s community—but its doctrines, law, and theology were still only beginning to take their canonical shapes. Arabic remained the language of the Muslims. By offi cial order Arabic replaced other languages as the medium of administration across all the conquered territory around the year 700. The process was not accomplished overnight, but it was nevertheless the new policy to use Arabic in government and administration.

38. For newcomers I recommend the shorter introductions of Fred Donner 1999 and H. Kennedy 1999. Hoyland 1997: 11–31 offers a concise introduction to the cultural background of the fi rst “Islamic century.” Donner 1998: 1–31 provides an especially clear introduction to the recent historiographic debates about the Arabic historical sources for the earliest part of the period.

Introduction

In 750 the Umayyad dynasty of caliphs, weakened by factionalism, was over-thrown by the <Abbāsids, who claimed to represent better the family of the prophet and who were backed by strong supporters from the prosperous and relatively recently conquered distant provinces of eastern Iran and Central Asia, territories that had previously been outside even the Sasanian Empire. These <Abbāsid caliphs were distinguished from their predecessors in following older models of Iranian kingship. One way in which they did this was to encourage scholarship and to fund scholars, particularly where it could promote their own authority and the prosper-ity of their administration. For example, the caliphs required astrologers, not only to advise them on the most favorable times for new undertakings, but also to dem-onstrate that <Abbāsid power was determined by long-established patterns in the heavens. Mathematics and medicine had their obvious practical applications. The patronage of and participation in scholarship became an increasingly prestigious and normal interest for members of the caliphal court and the privileged classes under the <Abbāsids. In this patronage they employed many non-Arabs, including many scholars learned both in Arabic and in the languages of their communities of origin, such as Persian, Greek, and Aramaic.

The foundation of the new capital of Baġdād in 762, about twenty miles upstream from the former Persian capital, represented the <Abbāsid al-Mansūr’s centralizing policies and physically brought together populations from all regions and ethnici-ties of the far-fl ung empire, representing many different creeds. The pace of conver-sion to Islam by members of the conquered populations, who now played a greater role in the administration of government, rapidly increased in the following cen-tury. Many converts had to learn Arabic prayers;39 regardless of their fi rst language, when their children were schooled, they learned Arabic writing and memorized Arabic scripture and verse, often attaining fl uency. Arabic became the normal inter-communal medium of learned discussion, as the languages of conquering colonists have repeatedly done in history. The class of literate bureaucrats, many of them of non-Arab background from both the former Roman and Persian empires, grew larger and created a new, urbane literature and richly developed sciences of gram-mar and religious tradition, all in Arabic. The introduction of paper technology, almost simultaneous with the rise of the <Abbāsids, facilitated the composition and compilation of written works on multivolume scales previously unknown in the days of the much more expensive parchment. In such circumstances, in which intense intercultural contact in a new arena coincided with a sharply rising regard for advanced scientifi c learning, patrons commissioned a huge number of transla-tions from the literary languages of those ruled—primarily Greek, Aramaic, and Persian—into the language of the rulers. Arabic, spoken by the Muslim kings and all

39. The status of the language of prayer was under dispute, but it was widely held that Muslim prayers were effi cacious only in Arabic.

Background

their followers, eclipsed competition in the public life of Muslim urban centers. Book traditions in languages such as Middle Persian and Aramaic were preserved for later ages only among religious scholars in their particular communities.

Of course, Arabic literature, oral and written, was never truly separate from con-tact with other literatures and translation. The Qur>ān itself retells stories from bib-lical and other literature that its audience was expected to know. What makes the <Abbāsid literary effl orescence remarkable is its scale, including the scale of transla-tion, the widespread support for translation, and the prestige of the translated works. Translation was a full-time profession for a select few, well paid by rich patrons. Several translators became enduringly famous for their work. The trans-lated texts became models for all later writings on the subjects they covered, stan-dards to emulate, react against, or build upon. In a word, they became classical, but exclusively in the new language. They were not studied in their original, now obso-lete, languages.40

The Arabic Hermes appears in this context of fresh exchange, in which authors in many fi elds of study and inquiry from many different ethnic backgrounds and countries met together, all using Arabic, in the young capital city of the largest empire the world had ever seen. Hermes is cited as an ancient authority already in the eighth century in some of the earliest known Arabic scientifi c works, the writ-ings of Iranian court astrologers of the <Abbāsids. In the ninth century, Hermes came to be considered in Arabic literature as not just an ancient scientifi c authority, but an antediluvian prophet whose revelation formed the very beginnings of sci-ence. His works were therefore thought to have been transmitted from the extremely distant past as a part of the heritage of the ancient world, recovered by Muslim scholars in this great epoch of translations. With respect to the chronological error—the attribution of very ancient dates to the works of Hermes—the reception of Hermetica in Arabic bears close resemblance to the Western European reception of the Hermetica that began in the fi fteenth century. This is not fortuitous, for the European concept of Hermes Trismegistus as a very ancient sage was derived from Arabic tradition as well as from the Church Fathers.41 The Arabic Hermetica appeared in the midst of the bloom of Arabic literature in every fi eld of human inquiry.

40. Gutas 1998 offers the best current introduction to the widespread translation of works from other languages, especially Greek, into Arabic. Readers wanting more information on the transmission of pre-Islamic literature into Arabic can consult Rosenthal 1975a (an anthology of translated texts) and Endress 1987–1992 (a comprehensive bibliographical essay) for the secular Greek scientifi c and philosophical traditions; Graf 1944–1953 for Christian Arabic translations from Greek, Syriac, and Coptic; for translations from Middle Persian into Arabic there is Panaino 2001 as well as F. de Blois, “Tardjama. Translations from Middle Persian (Pahlavī),” EI2, 10.231b–232b, and the works of Shaul Shaked listed in the bibliography. For Sanskrit into Arabic, see the works of David Pingree and van Bladel (forthcoming). For an introduction to Arabic literature as such, the volumes in the Cambridge History of Arabic Literature are recommended.

41. Burnett 1976 and Delp 2006: 5–9.

Introduction

There are very many classical Arabic works attributed to Hermes registered today in the world’s manuscript catalogs,42 including treatises on magical talismans, astrol-ogy, and alchemy, and ranging in length from short works of a single page to books of a couple of hundred. Just six of these texts have been published (dealing with astrology, alchemy, talismans, and snake venom), and only a few of them have known origins.43 At least two of the Arabic Hermetica are certainly translations from Middle Persian, one of which at least is in turn based on known Greek mate-rial.44 Another is a translation from Greek, perhaps a direct translation.45 Where did the rest of the Arabic Hermetica come from and who wrote them? Perhaps more of the Arabic Hermetica will turn out to be translations of Greek originals, even works lost in the original. Each text promises potentially to preserve in Arabic material deriving from Greek as early as the third century. The history of these Arabic Hermetica within Arabic tradition itself will require extensive study, as well: Hermes is cited or discussed in at least seventy individual Arabic works by different authors from Andalusia to India, dating from the eighth to the eighteenth century; this is based only on preliminary gleanings of the bibliographical sources.46 The massive Arabic Hermetic tradition—if the use and reuse of Hermes as an authority can be called Hermetic tradition—still awaits its modern students.

1.4 Understanding the Terms Hermeticand Hermetism in the Arabic Context

Before going on, it is necessary to deal with a problem of defi nition. In modern scholarly usage, the terms Hermetic and Hermetism are both used to refer to several totally different things in various traditions in different languages and periods. One author uses these terms to refer to anything seeming esoteric, whereas another uses it to refer to anything having to do with alchemy. Another calls any work that even mentions Hermes in passing Hermetic, and still other uses of the word confuse the matter more. These names have been employed in so many ways that there cannot

42. Strictly speaking, there are about fi fty different titles of works reported in manuscript catalogs. However, some of these titles have turned out to be different designations of the same work, so a precise enumeration of the actual works is not possible at this point. Still it is possible to say that there are more than twenty different Arabic Hermetica.

43. BadawĪ 1955: 55–116, Vereno 1992: 136–159 and 160–181, Ullmann 1994, Kunitzsch 2001,Toral-Niehoff 2004. One can add the short Emerald Tablet of Hermes from at the end of the Kitāb Sirr al-xalīqa of pseudo-Apollonius, ed. Weisser 1979: 524–525 (book V, section 33.2) (cf. Ullmann 1972:170–172), and the wise sayings of Hermes (on which see section 5.3 in this volume).

44. See section 2.2.45. This is the text known as Kyranis; see Ullmann 1975, edited by Toral-Niehoff 2004. Although it

was associated with Hermes in its Greek version, the extant Arabic does not mention Hermes at all.46. The standard bibliographic manuscript surveys show how widely Hermes was cited and

mentioned. See the references in Ullmann 1970 and 1972, indices under Hermes; GAS 3.171, 4.42.5, 7.5.7,7.57.28–29, 7.58.30, 7.58.31; Fahd 1966: 396.

Background

be any consensus among scholars today about what works can be considered as Hermetica. Is a work Hermetic if it deals with alchemy, or merely if it claims to be a secret text revealed to an elect few? Sometimes Hermetism is treated as a literary genre, and other times it seems to describe a supposed doctrine. Some modern authors also refer to the Hermetists, meaning those who followed an alleged doc-trine set out in Hermetic works or who practiced Hermetic disciplines. What they practiced is usually called Hermetism, as if they held a defi nite and specifi c doctrine, yet the nature of this Hermetism has not been adequately addressed in discussion. Even when European alchemists during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries self-consciously describe their doctrines as hermetic, the meaning of the term for them is not entirely clear.47 Yet the terms, as historians employ them, are crucially important, because the moment we use them, we implicitly assert historical and social realities behind them and propose distinctive categories where there may have been none.

The debate about the social reality behind the ancient Greek Hermetica in Egypt has lasted for a long time. Richard Reitzenstein, for example, wanted to see a school or community of Hermetists as the source of the Greek Hermetica.48 This idea was rejected by the authoritative Festugière as groundless. Instead, he argued that attri-bution to Hermes was just a feature of a literary genre of the Roman Empire in the fi rst centuries of the Common Era. Thus works attributed to Hermes could be grouped together with similar works falsely attributed to other legendary sages such as Zoroaster.49 Nevertheless, he did not hesitate to use the word hermétisme to describe the doctrines of the Hermetica. Despite Festugière’s criticism, the idea of Hermetists as a historical group in Roman Egypt has been championed by several later scholars, and this now seems to have been victorious. One of the main argu-ments of Garth Fowden’s The Egyptian Hermes is that there were ancient Hermetists as such practicing a Hermetism as such, and that the Greek Corpus Hermeticumrepresents their coherent school of thought. Although he did not state explicitly exactly when these Hermetists are supposed to have been practicing their way, testi-monia of the discourses of Hermes (the “philosophical” Hermetica) would point to the second or third century. I fi nd Fowden’s arguments about the character of the circles of spiritual aspirants who produced these texts mostly convincing, though, as he himself admits, his conclusions necessarily involve some uncertainty.50 But even if we concede that the term Hermetists is suitable to describe the authors and origi-nal readers of the ancient Hermetica, what do we do with the name when we try to describe the Arabic Hermetica, half a millennium later and more, the doctrines and practices described within them, as well as their authors and readers?

47. Copenhaver 1990: 280–290 and Ebeling 2007: 1–2.48. Reitzenstein 1904: 248.49. Festugière 1.81–87.50. Fowden, 1993a: 155–195.

Introduction

When it comes to the Arabic Hermetica, one fi nds in modern scholarship a highly inconsistent use of the terms Hermetic, Hermetist, and Hermetism. Because the words have ordinarily been used to refer to a putative religious group in early Roman Egypt and its works, or to occultists of early modern Europe, one might expect some critical refl ection on the meaning of these terms when applied to the very different background of early Arabic culture, and to the social realities assumed behind those terms. I have not found any such refl ection on Arabic Hermeticism.Moreover, in the context of Arabic literature, modern scholars generally use the word Hermetic to refer not just to works associated with the name Hermes, but also to all manner of works with allegedly “Gnostic,” “Neoplatonic,” “Neopythagorean,” or “esoteric” tendencies or practically any early Arabic pseudepigraph.51 Above all, it is used to refer to the beliefs of the Sābians of Harrān, about whom very little is known, but who have been the subject of seemingly endless speculation. (Their relationship to the Hermetica is the subject of chapter 3.)

In fact, a remarkable number of the modern studies discussing Arabic Hermeticismemphasize just how vaguely defi ned it must have been. It is as if a vague defi nition of the supposed phenomenon proved that the thing itself was vague. The general unwillingness to defi ne the object means that obscure, meaningless, and sometimes simply false assertions about Hermeticism have prevailed. Some have claimed that a given Arabic author or work was Hermetic with hardly any reference to Arabic works of Hermes or any explanation of the term.52 Others allege the great “infl uence of Hermetism on Islam,”53 or oppose the “rational Aristotelianism” to the “irrational Hermeticism” in Arabic philosophy.54 Some fi nd Hermetists in fi gures that they see as marginal to an imagined Islamic orthodoxy, such as certain Šī<ites, alchemists, and unconventional individuals such as the tenth-century physician ar-Rāzī, or sometimes in any author who so much as cites Hermes.55 Hermetism has even been imagined as a risky belief system dangerous for its adherents because of the

51. The terms Gnostic, Neoplatonic, and Neopythagorean are also all equally ill-defi ned for Arabic literature.

52. E.g., Joosse 1993. Walbridge 2001: 17–50 attempts this for as-Suhrawardī, although maintaining nevertheless that “The Hermetica do not have clear, distinctive, and consistent doctrines” and that their teachings “can be related to almost every signifi cant intellectual movement in antiquity” (42). Walbridge’s conclusions about the “Hermetic” aspect of as-Suhrawardī’s thought are not based on reference to Arabic or Persian works of Hermes that as-Suhrawardī knew.

53. Affi fi 1951, who calls the Hermetic vagueness “eclecticism” and thinks that Hermeticism might therefore help to explain the “eclectic character of Moslem thought” (841).

54. Massignon 1950: 389–390; Nasr 1967: 76: “The Hermetic school . . . considered inner purifi cation as the means of attaining the truth as opposed to the rationalistic tendencies of the Peripatetics. In the sciences of nature, this school distrusted the syllogistic method and sought to rely on a knowledge of concrete causes which could be observed and experienced . . . In the Muslim world, Hermeticism must be considered as one of the most important factors which aided in the construction of the Muslim world view.”

55. Massignon 1950: 395–399; Grignaschi 1975: 62–63; Peters 1990; Green 1992: 169.

Background

supposedly oppressive “orthodox” Muslims, who, it appears, uniformly hate Hermetists, even though Hermes came to be regarded by Muslims as a prophet.56

Another approach has been to apply the defi nition of the Hermetic genre created by Festugière for the Greek Hermetica to Arabic literature.57 Festugière’s defi nition of “the hermetic” was, however, fundamentally tied to the motif of revelation of a hid-den text. Consequently, it is of little value in the context of the literature of Muslims, whose very scripture, the Qur>ān, would have to be described as Hermetic on the same grounds.58 Characteristic of all such studies is a total or near total lack of atten-tion to the books actually attributed to Hermes in Arabic, not to mention the chron-ological order of hundreds of years of sources.

Much of what has been written so far about the Arabic Hermetica and Hermetism in Arabic is therefore misleading. It is inappropriate to apply terms, the utility of which is debatable within the study of Greek literature of the Roman period, and which are loaded with connotations derived from the Hermetic movement of early modern Europe, to early Arabic literature without careful discussion. Calling some-thing Hermetic in this context does more to obscure than to explain its meaning and history. We are left only with a vague impression of a supposedly distinctive intellectual movement and increasingly elaborate speculations on the same well-known but inconclusive textual references. The majority of Arabists having no spe-cial expertise in the problems presented by the Hermetica themselves are led by works such as these to notions of “the infl uence of Hermetism in Islam,” and these have subsequently been repeated in more general works as accepted facts. A survey of the views on Arabic Hermetica on the Internet, including reference works as well as the Web sites of modern alchemists, astrologers, and those of “esoteric” interests, easily found with any search engine, gives an even more disappointing picture of misinformation—often based, however, at least partly on scholarly works like those described above. What is needed is not more pure theorizing about Hermetism in Arabic or in Islam, but studies devoted to the Arabic Hermetica and the Arabic works discussing them, the primary sources themselves which have so far not been subjected to suffi ciently critical scrutiny.

After all this speculation about Arabic Hermetism, it still remains to be shown precisely what the Arabic Hermetic texts themselves say, who used them and how, from where they originated, how they were transmitted, in what sense they are Hermetic, and indeed who Hermes was thought to be and why. To assume the

56. Scott, 1.106–109; Stapleton, Lewis, and Sherwood Taylor 1949: 69–70; Peters 1990: 188: “There were few outright and confessed Hermetists in Islam. Such confessions were likely to prove dangerous in a professedly religious society such as Islam . . .”

57. Festugière 1.309–354; Plessner 1954a: 47; Klein-Franke 1973.58. The Qur

& ān itself says that it was kept on “a guarded tablet” and that it was revealed by God (85:21–22); Muhammad would therefore be a “Hermetist” classed with Pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana, who discovered revelations of Hermes on a hidden tablet.

Introduction

existence of a special sect of Hermetists who produced the Arabic Hermetica, as has been done with reason for the Greek Hermetica, is not only so far unsupported, but could further confuse the issue by suggesting implicitly the identity of, or at least a connection between, the ancient Hermetists—whose characteristics and even exis-tence have long been the subject of debate—and the authors of the Arabic Hermetica, the Arab Hermetists, a modern invention. That is not to say that no such commu-nity in Arabic will ever be discovered, as unlikely as it may be. For the purposes of this study, however, I am staying close to the texts.

The term Hermetic will be applied only to texts attributed by name to Hermes.The expression Hermetic tradition is used here only to mean the tradition of

textual transmission of writings attributed to Hermes.59

The terms Hermetism and Hermetists will be avoided as much as possible.Some defi ciencies in this working defi nition of Hermetic are immediately clear. It

excludes much literature that might be related to the Arabic Hermetica but is not attributed to Hermes by name, such as works associated in Arabic with the names Agathodaemon, Asclepius, and Pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana. I have indeed had to make some exceptions to this defi nition.60 However, given the absence of any well-founded idea of what Hermetic, Hermetist, and Hermetism might mean in the con-text of Arabic literature, I am making these restrictions to give the project some coherency. One should keep in mind that the term Hermetism did not exist in Arabic literature; other terms and criteria appropriate to this context are needed and remain to be determined. To move forward, one must discard all of the assumptions com-monly made in modern scholarship and rely as much as possible on primary sources, not to talk vaguely about Hermetism, but to study the Arabic Hermetica themselves and relevant works contemporary with them. Only later will it be possible to take texts attributed to other fi gures related to Hermes, such as Agathodaemon, into account, and to determine whether a coherent set of doctrines that might be called “Arabic Hermetism” can be found, and whether such a designation will actually help us to understand the history of the texts.

Despite the picture just painted, there are a number of notable and praiseworthy exceptions to the pattern of obfuscation in the study of the Arabic Hermetica during

59. Copenhaver 1990: 289 urges roughly the same application of the term for early modern European hermetic tradition: “In my view, the term ‘hermetic’ should be used primarily to name a set of texts: either the philosophical Hermetica published by Ficino and Lodovico Lazarelli . . . or popular Hermetica, such as the Kyranides . . .” Copenhaver also calls for research on how the term Hermetic was used in the early modern period; the same is required for any period in which like terms are used.

60. The only extant Greek Hermeticum to survive in Arabic translation, the Kyranis, actually has lost all reference to Hermes even though it survives in manuscripts including other Arabic Hermetica (Beeston 1962–1967, Ullmann 1975, Toral-Niehoff 2004).

Background

the last half century. When scholars have dealt directly with the texts themselves, they have made real advances. Such studies are the foundation of everything that follows here, and their importance will be obvious at every stage.61 I have benefi ted much from these predecessors in this work, and I wish to express my debt to them here at the outset.

61. Fuat Sezgin’s bibliographical Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (GAS) offers the most complete inventory of the Arabic manuscripts ascribed to Hermes, the list itself being an unmatched contribution because it contains detailed basic information indispensable for future work on the primary sources of this subject. The late David Pingree wrote a number of astonishingly learned studies of astrological texts and related works often touching upon the Hermetica, and these provide many important contributions to the subject undertaken here—indeed, they are one of the bases of this book—although Pingree’s theories about the alleged connection between the Sābians of Harrān and the Hermetica remain to be verifi ed. Although I propose a number of corrections to Pingree’s conclusions in what follows, I could not have proceeded to my own conclusions without his earlier studies. Charles Burnett’s research on the reception of Arabic Hermetica and the Arabic occult sciences in Latin has also been foundational and has shed light on many problems. Paul Kunitzsch showed that an extant Arabic Hermetic text was translated from Middle Persian, the only case in which the proximate origin of an Arabic Hermeticum is known for certain, and he has edited this text in its Arabic and Latin versions. Manfred Ullmann’s valuable bibliographical study of natural and occult sciences in Arabic is a great resource for scholarship on the subject, and in 1994 he edited an Arabic Hermetic text previously unknown, Hermes’ book on snake poisons. Ullmann also discovered the only known case of a whole Arabic Hermetic text the Greek antecedent of which survives, the Kyranis. Isabel Toral-Niehoff has now published an edition and study of this work. Ursula Weisser’s edition and study of the Sirr al-xalīqa of Pseudo-Apollonius crucially help to establish a chronology of some of the early Arabic Hermetica, including the Emerald Tablet. Thanks to these scholars, and the works of pioneering researchers of earlier generations such as J. Ruska, P. Kraus, and M. Plessner, the Arabic Hermetica are not completely uncharted territory.

2

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

In the early third century, a noble family of persia overthrew the Parthian king Artabanus IV and established their Sasanid dynasty fi rmly over all of Iran and Mesopotamia. The new King of Kings, Ardašīr I, and his son and successor, Šāpu-r I, ruled an Iranian empire that would remain a lasting rival of the Romans and Byzantines (ca 224–642 ce).1 Like their Roman counterparts, the Persian emperors dominated a vast territory including many different ethnic and religious groups having their own languages and traditions.2 But although the two literatures of the Roman ruling class, Greek and Latin, were substantially preserved by later generations according to their own peculiar historical circumstances, the Persian literature of the same period is almost entirely lost. Middle Persian, the lan-guage of the Sasanian court and administration of government, as well as their Magian (Zoroastrian) religion, was displaced by Arabic after the Arab conquest and colonization of Iran in the seventh and eighth centuries.3 Arabic, the prestigious language of the new rulers and of their new religion, Islam, superseded written Iranian languages almost entirely. Education and literacy in Middle Persian and other Iranian languages became practically obsolete for Iranians who converted to Islam. The children of converts learned Arabic, the language of their scripture, as their own literary medium. Nevertheless, as the number of Iranian Magians

1. Dignas and Winter 2007.2. Detailed comparisons of the Roman and Persian empires, and a history of the rivalry between

the two, are found in Dignas and Winter 2007 and Howard-Johnston 1995. For a different approach to Sasanian Iran, see Pourshariati 2008.

3. Middle Persian is an Iranian language, an older relative of Modern Persian, Farsi. It was used as the language of court, of the Magian (Mazdaean, Zoroastrian) religion, and for other offi cial purposes in the Sasanian Empire and is preserved in Magian texts from that period to the present. It was also an important ecclesiastical language of the Manichaeans in Iran and Central Asia, and was used to an unknown degree by Christians of Iranian background. This much is known from the surviving remains, but there is no doubt that other forms of literature in Middle Persian are now lost. The language was written in various cognate scripts derived from the Aramaic script, the best known of which is called Pahlavi; Middle Persian is itself is often called Pahlavi or Pehlevi.

Background

diminished, some Middle Persian texts deemed worthy of preservation were translated into Arabic. Middle Persian works do survive in their original form in continuous manuscript tradition, but only when preserved by priests in the Magian communities, an ever-shrinking minority who maintained the old religion of their parents and the memory of ancient Iran’s Persian kings and mythology.4 The priests retained relatively few nonreligious texts in Middle Persian,5 but a substantial quan-tity of originally Middle Persian texts survives to this day in Arabic translation, some of which are not yet recognized as translated.

As this chapter will show, the lost Middle Persian literature of Sasanian Iran also included works of Hermes Trismegistus.6 Some of these, in Arabic translation, became a part of the Arabic Hermetica. Although this is not well known, research has sporadically suggested the existence of lost Iranian Hermetica for almost a cen-tury.7 Paul Kunitzsch and David Pingree proved beyond doubt that at least a couple of astrological works attributed to Hermes circulated in Middle Persian language.8

Charles Burnett, referring to the work of Reitzenstein and Pingree, concluded after studying some astrological doctrines found in Arabic Hermetic texts that “we have reasonable evidence that at least part of the Arabic Hermetica derived from Persian and ultimately Indian sources.”9 No one, however, has made a special, concerted investigation of the evidence for pre-Islamic Middle Persian Hermetica. That is the

4. Substantial quantities of fragmentary Manichaean texts in Middle Persian have been discovered at Turfan and other Central Asian sites, but these were not part of a continuously preserved heritage as Zoroastrian Middle Persian is.

5. Cereti 2001 is presently the most thorough introduction to the Middle Persian literature of the Zoroastrians.

6. Middle Persian Hermetica are not mentioned in any survey, bibliography, or general study devoted to the Greek Hermetica. The exact identity of the type of script in which the Middle Persian Hermetica were written is in most cases impossible to determine, because no Hermetic work survives in Middle Persian form. For now the reader may refer to the descriptions of Middle Persian scripts given by Tafaz

.z.olī, “Dabīre,” EIr, 6.540a–541b, as well as Sundermann 1989: 142–143 for an overview and

further bibliography.7. Blochet’s study of the Arabic Hermetica kept in the Bibliothèque Nationale (1911–1912) led him to

make hypotheses of an Iranian background that could explain their peculiar features and their mysterious names. He was the fi rst to point to the alleged parallel between a passage of the Hermetic Kitāb Ustuwwatās and the Zoroastrian Middle Persian cosmology known as the Bundahišn that later excited some further interest (idem: 62–64). Julius Ruska, in his studies of the Arabic Book of Stones of Ps-Aristotle (Ruska 1911: esp. 43–44) and of the Hermetic Tabula Smaragdina (Ruska 1926), pointed to a pre-Islamic Iranian scientifi c literature, in the end referring to Blochet’s studies and concluding that the cooperation of classicists, Arabists, and Iranists would be required to solve some of these puzzles (idem: 45–47). Richard Reitzenstein went furthest by postulating an Iranian background to the Greek Hermetica, rather than the other way around (a view not accepted today), and pointed out more parallels between Greek and Arabic Hermetica and Zoroastrian Middle Persian literature (Reitzenstein and Schaeder 1926).

8. Kunitzsch 1968, 1970, 1981, 2001. For Sasanian astrology in general, including detailed references, as well as discussion of Middle Persian Hermetica, see Pingree 1997, especially chapter 4, “The Recovery of Sasanian Astrology,” 39–50.

9. Burnett 1986: 86–87.

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

present task. As will become clear, establishing the existence of Hermetica in pre-Islamic Middle Persian is not a diffi cult matter; on the other hand, fi xing the date of their translation into, or composition in, the Middle Persian language is much harder to say with any degree of certainty, and correspondingly requires much lengthier investigation having less satisfying results.

The study of the Arabic Hermetica themselves cannot proceed without taking the Middle Persian tradition fully into account for the simple fact that some of the Arabic texts derive from the Middle Persian, not Greek, Hermetica. The Sasanian tradition is thus a fundamental part of the background to the Arabic works of Hermes. Where even a few Arabic Hermetic texts are known for certain to derive from a Middle Persian antecedent, any number of others may in fact have similar origins not yet detected. An attempt to answer the question completely will require careful study of the internal evidence found in the Arabic Hermetica individually. As a preliminary to such future investigation, this chapter gathers the evidence external to the Arabic Hermetica for these little-known Middle Persian works and explores the traditions pointing to the transmission of ancient Hermetica from Greek into Middle Persian long before the existence of Arabic literature.

2.1 Evidence for Hermes in Sasanian Magical Texts

The name Hermes was invoked in Sasanian Mesopotamia as a source of occult power. A few surviving texts of Syro-Mesopotamian origin provide the attestations: two Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowls containing the same formula,10 found at Nippur (modern Niffar) in Iraq, once part of the Sasanian Empire, and a magical amulet written in Syriac on parchment dating to Sasanian times.11 Incantation bowls are a type of popular magical apparatus inscribed with texts in different Eastern varieties of Aramaic made from about the fourth to the seventh century, that is, under the Persian Sasanid dynasty, in Mesopotamia. Unfortunately little is known about exactly how they were used.12 The two bowls mentioning Hermes invoke him as a magical power, so that the protective operation is performed not only in the name of four angels but also in the name of “Hermes the Great Lord,” hyrmys mry> rb>.13 One of these bowls was made for the benefi t of “Yazīdād, son of

10. Edited in parallel in Montgomery 1913, bowl 7, line 8.11. Gignoux 1987: 25–43. “Amulet” here is qm<> rather than the better-known Syriac form qmî<â. Cf.

Middle Persian qm>hg /kumāhag/ (Durkin-Meisterernst 2004: 205b), Mandaic qmaha (Drower and Macuch 1963: 413b).

12. Theories about the use of these bowls are given in Naveh and Shaked 1985: 15–16.13. The spellings of Hermes appear as hyrmys on one of the bowls and as >yrmys on the other.

Montgomery 1913: 29 noted that in the spelling system used on these bowls, y and w were often used to indicate short vowels as well as long vowels (as in Babylonian Aramaic in general). Another magical formula appearing on some other similar incantation bowls was formerly thought to include the name Hermes, but Naveh and Shaked 1985: 131–132 have shown that this should be read >dms> = Manichaean Middle Persian >rms>, Arabic and New Persian >lm>s ���� = Greek adámas �d�la|, “diamond” or “steel.”

Background

Yazdāndukh(t),” both Middle Persian names indicating a Persian, perhaps aristo-cratic, recipient.14 As for the parchment amulet, although it was written in Syriac, it was made for the protection of a certain ¢warrawehzād, called Yazdānzādag, daugh-ter of Denag, whose name is also clearly Middle Persian.15 The magical formulae in this text are hard to understand, full of strange terms, many of which appear to be distorted names of ancient signifi cance derived from various backgrounds, such as Uriel (Hebrew) and Nabu (Akkadian and Aramaic). Although the editor of the text has made a valiant attempt to decipher this document and explain the names, the meaning of all the terms in the text cannot, at present, be explicated precisely. In any case, among the authoritative names invoked on this amulet is unmistakably the name Hermes, Lord of the Universe (hrms mr> kl ).16

The brief appearances here of the name Hermes do not make these Aramaic texts “Hermetic” in the sense used here (Hermes is not the alleged author), but they provide evidence that the magical power associated with the name Hermes was known in Sasanian Iran. Their formulae should be understood in the broader context of late antique magic, including the Greek magical papyri mentioning Hermes.17 It is also noteworthy that the Syriac amulet mentioned above contains one of the earliest known examples of the abjad-script spelling of hrms for Hermes,18 the spelling later most widespread in Arabic.19 In the end, however, these magical amulets and bowls, so poorly understood, do little to further our knowledge of Hermes in the Sasanian Empire.

14. For the attestation of these names in Middle Persian, see Justi 1895: Yazīdād 149b; Yazdāndukht146b.

15. The suffi x -ag, represented in the Syriac with a qop [Q], is characteristic of Middle Persian, not of New Persian. This evidence almost certainly indicates that it can be dated to the Sasanian period.

16. Gignoux 1987: 32.27.17. For a basic orientation into Greek magical texts referring to Hermes, see Fowden 1993a: 79–87

and 168–172. For the Egyptian background to the Greek magical texts, see Dieleman 2005.18. Abjad is the grammatological term for the type of script that shows only consonants and some

of the vowels, or in other words, a consonantary. This term distinguishes it from scripts like the alphabet, which renders each vowel as well as each consonant with an individual grapheme, and from other types of script. On this scientifi c typology of scripts see Daniels 1996.

19. The normal spelling of Hermes in Syriac is >rmys or hrmys (see, for the former, Jacob of Edessa, Hexaemeron 149b11–150a17, and for the latter, Bar <Ebrāyā (Ibn al-<Ibrī), Syriac Chronicle, Bodleian MS Hunt. 52 facsimile 2v.a15 and 55r.b33, trans. 5 and 153. Even Arabic authors mention that in Greek the name is >rmysor hrmys, which is indeed the way that the name would normally be transcribed into Arabic from Greek. Hrms appears interchangeably with hrmys in the third-century work Book of the Laws of the Countries (e.g., Drijvers 1965: 48.12 and 50.8). Hrms is also the spelling of the name in the texts translated from Middle Persian mentioned below as well as in most of the Arabic Hermetica. It became the standard spelling in Arabic, but the fact that it was not regarded as the Greek way of citing the name is indicated by the note sometimes accompanying the biographies of Hermes in Arabic that his name is hrms but the Greeks called him >rmys or hrmys (notably in Mubaššir ibn Fātik, Muxtār al-hikam, 7.9–10; the whole text is given in translation in section 4.2 in this volume). It is highly likely, therefore, that even the spelling of the name hrmswas transferred from Middle Persian (and not from Greek or from Syriac, in which the spelling hrms appears only rarely), as was done with the title of the Almagest (Kunitzsch 1975: 281). Paul Kunitzsch illustrated this type of transmission of spellings with reference to several Greek words and argued convincingly that the name Almagest spelled in Arabic >lmgsty, without full letters for the Greek short vowels, must be a translitera-tion from Middle Persian (Kunitzsch 1974: 115–125; 1975: 280–281) and not from Greek or Syriac.

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

2.2 The Hermes of the Sasanian Astrologers

The present concern is rather with the book traditions of pre-Islamic Iran. Nallino, Kunitzsch, and Pingree have already proved that a number of scientifi c books were translated from Greek into Middle Persian in the Sasanian Persian Empire and then were later translated from Middle Persian into Arabic in the early <Abbāsid period (second half of the eighth century to the early ninth century).20 All the Middle Persian versions of these texts have been lost, along with most of the literature of that language, but some survive in Arabic translation. Their survival in Arabic is, in fact, the only reason we know of the Middle Persian stage. Of these few works, three are especially important here: two directly attributed to Hermes, and one including a reference to a separate, apparently unknown, book of Hermes. In the search for texts in Middle Persian attributed to Hermes, these texts suffi ce to prove that some form of Sasanian Middle Persian Hermetic literature did exist.

One of these texts is the Kitāb Asrār an-nugu-m of Hermes (The Secrets of the Stars,and in the Latin translation of the Arabic, Liber de stellis beibeniis),21 a work explain-ing the characteristics of persons born under the infl uence of the brightest fi xed stars. In 1970 Kunitzsch showed the Arabic to be a translation from Middle Persian, retaining many of the Middle Persian words in Arabic transliteration. Later, Pingree demonstrated that Rhetorius, a Byzantine scholar who fl ourished around 600 ce,writing in Greek, shared the same (presumably Hermetic) source as the Middle Persian text for his chapter On the Powers of the Fixed Stars.22 By studying the celestial

20. Nallino 1922; Kunitzsch 1968, 1970, 1975, 1981; Pingree 1962, 1963a, 1973, 1975, and especially 1989a. See also Panaino 2001. The works of this kind identifi ed so far are fi ve in number: Cassianus Bassus Scholasticus’ Geoponica, Dorotheus’ Carmen Astrologicum, Vettius Valens’ Anthologiae, Teucer of Babylon’s Paranatellonta, and Hermes Trismegistus’ “de Stellis Beibeniis.” A possible sixth is the astrological work attributed to Zoroaster, Kitāb al-Mawālīd (claimed as from Greek by Kunitzsch 1993). Nöldeke 1890 also showed that the Syriac version of the historical novel of Pseudo-Callisthenes, the “Alexander Romance,” had been translated from a Middle Persian version of the Greek. I do not accept the arguments of Ciancaglini 1998 and 2001 objecting to Nöldeke on this issue; see van Bladel 2007a: 61–64.

21. The word beibeniis is the Medieval Latin transcription (with Latin infl ectional ending) of the Arabic transcription (al-biyābānīya) of the Middle Persian adjective awiyābānīg, “non-wandering,” or “fi xed (stars),” rendering the Greek adjective �pkamñ| (Henning 1942a: 232n3). As noted by Kunitzsch 1993: 244–245, formerly this word has been misunderstood by al-Bīru-nī and some modern scholars following him to mean “(stars) of the desert.”

22. It is signifi cant that the long portion immediately preceding this chapter in Rhetorius’ work, dealing with the astrological “doctrine of the twelve places,” is attributed in one class of the manuscripts to Hermes Trismegistus. (See F. Cumont in CCAG 8.4.116–117, text edited at 126–182; this will be book V, chapter 57 of the forthcoming edition of Pingree and Heilen: Rhetorius 2009.) It seems likely that the source shared by Rhetorius and the Middle Persian translator included both of these together, along with the attribution of at least the fi rst of the two parts to Hermes, after which Rhetorius did not indicate that the section on “the doctrine of the twelve places” was also attributed to Hermes in the shared source; alternatively, the Middle Persian translator mistakenly attributed the second part of the shared source to Hermes because it immediately followed the fi rst part bearing that attribution. On Rhetorius see Pingree 1977 and Pingree 2001: 6–13.

Background

coordinates given for these stars, and noting the difference in their position from that given by Ptolemy’s Almagest in the second century, Pingree argued that this Hermetic source must have been written about 505 ce, calculating this date according to Ptolemy’s own guideline of a one degree increase in longitude every 100 years. The same change in coordinates of these stars, shared by the Greek of Rhetorius and the Middle Persian-Arabic version of this Hermetic work, could mean only that the two works share a common source.23 Therefore the date ca 500, if Pingree’s assumption is correct, gives a terminus post quem for this Hermetic text in its Middle Persian form.

The second text gives similar evidence for a Middle Persian Hermetic literature, citing even name of the translator. An Arabic manuscript now in Berlin is entitled The Book of Hermes on Revolutions of the Years of the Nativities, as <Umar ibn al-Farruxān at-Tabarī Translated It from Persian into Arabic, it being The Rod of Gold.24 <Umar ibn al-Farruxān aṭ -Tabarī (d. 816) was a court astrologer for the caliph al-Mansu-r (r. 754–775).25 His father’s non-Muslim Iranian name, his epithet indicating his family origin in Tabaristān, his being one of the earliest known Arabic astrologers, and his reported translation of another Middle Persian work (immedi-ately below) all make his translation of this work from Middle Persian into Arabic totally plausible. Although we lack for now a thorough study of the text, it is never-theless clear that this is another example of an astrological work of Hermes once written in Middle Persian.

Third is the Carmen Astrologicum of Dorotheus (fl . fi rst century ce). This work survives almost complete in the Arabic translation of the Middle Persian recension of the mostly lost Greek original. The Arabic translation from Middle Persian was made, signifi cantly, by the same <Umar ibn al-Farruxān. In the Arabic, the text con-tains references both to a Hermes Trismegistus, king of Egypt (al-mušarraf al-maHmu-d bi-TalāT t abā>i< Hirmis Malik Mis.r), and to a Babylonian Hermes, the addressee of the book, who is described as the son of Dorotheus the King of Egypt.26

23. Pingree 1989a: 233–234. See also Kunitzsch 2001: 13, citing the anonymous astrologer of 379 cefor Ptolemy’s guideline (CCAG 5.1, 198.5–7).

24. Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz, MS or. oct. 3256 (described by Schoeler 1990:175–177). Arabic title: Kitāb Hirmis fī tahwīl sinī l-mawālīd bi-mā fassarahu- <Umar ibn al-Farruxān at-Tabarī min al-Fārisīya ilā l-<arabīya wa-huwa Qadīb aD-Dahab. This work is mentioned by an-Nadīm(Fihrist 327.3–4; ed. Flügel 267.15) as Kitāb al-Maktu-m fī asrār an-nugu-m wa-yusammā Qadīb aD-Dahab(The Hidden Book on the secrets of the stars, called “The Golden Bough”); apparently it is the same as that which he lists as a work of <Umar ibn al-Farruxān under the title Kitāb Tahwīl sinī l-mawālīd (Fihrist333.1). It is also named by S ā< id al-Andalusī (ed. Cheikho 19), and was apparently cited in Latin by Hermann of Carinthia in his De essentiis, written in 1143 at Béziers (Burnett 1981: 167n6), as Hermes’ Aurea Virga, although this will have to be verifi ed in a study of the still unedited Arabic text.

25. Ullmann 1972: 306–307.26. Dorotheus 1.1–2, 2.20. Pingree 1999 shows evidence of a second Arabic translation of Dorotheus

from the same Middle Persian version; he attributes the translation tentatively to Māšā>allāh. According to Pingree 1975: 7, Dorotheus is represented as King of Egypt also in another Arabic translation of a Middle Persian work, the still unedited Kitāb al-Mawālīd wa-ahkāmihā of Zarādušt (Zoroaster), a work of genethlialogy dependent on Dorotheus.

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

The fi rst reference, to Hermes King of Egypt, says that one should consult Hermes’ book to learn the places of the planets. This implies that a Hermetic astronomical work, perhaps tables of planetary motions, was known in Middle Persian—unless of course the reference is an addition in the Arabic. The other, perhaps surprising, reference, to the Babylonian Hermes is explained in another text, examined below, written by the Iranian astrologer Ibn Nawbaxt, a younger colleague of <Umar ibn al-Farruxān. For now, the point is that an astrological book translated from Middle Persian into Arabic refers the reader to a specifi c work of Hermes.

Besides these texts, some of the other earliest Arabic astrological writings, also written by Iranian astrologers, cite Hermes as an established authority. One such astrologer was Zādānfarru-x al-Andarzġar, of late Sasanian or early Islamic times; the surviving fragments of his writing, in Arabic translation, refer to an astrological work of Hermes.27 The early <Abbāsid court astrologer Māšā>allāh (fl . 762–ca 815), an associate of <Umar ibn al-Farruxān aṭ -Tabarī, cites Hermes as an authority in his own Arabic works.28 He may well have known works of Hermes in the Middle Persian original; being a learned Iranian Jew, Māšā>allāh could have had access to Aramaic and Persian sources as well as Arabic.29 Al-Fazārī, another contemporary and fellow astrologer at the court of the caliph al-Mansu-r in Baġdād, is also known to have used a work or works attributed to Hermes: one fragment of al-Fazārī’s writing, reported by al-Bīru-nī (d. ca 1050),30 credits Hermes with establishing a measure of the circumference of the earth, and another fragment of al-Fazārī,reported again by al-Bīru-nī, via Yāqu-t (d. 1229), credits Hermes with the doctrine of the division of the inhabited world into seven climes.31 Because relatively few Middle Persian texts are known to have been translated into Arabic by the time in which Māšā>allāh and al-Fazārī were working, and because they were undoubtedly working

27. Edited and translated by Burnett and al-Hamdi 1991–1992.28. Hermes is mentioned in the beginning of Ibn Hibintā’s (ninth cent.) summary of Māšā>allāh’s

astrological history Fī l-qirānāt wa-l-adyān wa-l-milal (On Conjunctions, Religions, and Nations), ed. and trans. E. S. Kennedy and D. Pingree 1971, f 214v.13. “Hermes and others” are cited together as authorities on conjunctions and world-year transfers. It is unlikely that this is an interpolation of Ibn Hibintā; the phrase “Hermes and others” cited as authorities seems to be rather from the original text.

29. Pingree, “Māshā’allāh,” DSB 9.159–162; Pingree 1973: 37b. Māšā>allāh also cites Dorotheus in a different translation from the Middle Persian (not that of < Umar ibn al-Farruxān), perhaps indicating that he read it in the Middle Persian original himself and rendered it, or parts of it, again (Pingree 1999).

30. D. J. Boilot, “al-Bīru-nī,” EI 2, 1.1236a–1238a.31. Pingree 1970, 115–116 (citing al-Bīru-nī, Tahdīd, 211–212 and Yāqu-t, Buldān, 1.27.15–17). The

second report includes a comment of al-Bīru-nī relevant to our understanding of the Arabic Hermetica: “Abu--Rayhān al-Bīru-nī said, ‘Hermes held this division [scil. of the climata] that Muhammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī relied on in his zīg [i.e. astronomical almanac]. Since Hermes was one of the ancients, it appears that no other (division) was used in his time; however, the subjects of mathematics and astronomy [rather than geography] are more particular to Hermes.’ ” For a detailed investigation of the history of the doctrine of the seven climata, see Honigmann 1929, to be supplemented by Neugebauer 1975, index under “climata: seven climata.” Išox, a medieval Armenian author, says in his book on nature (Girk‘ i veray Bnut‘ean) that Hermes and Aristotle divide the world into seven climates (Thomson 1992: 203).

Background

in an Iranian tradition of astrology, there is every reason to think that these eighth-century fi gures were using not Arabic, but Middle Persian Hermetica—as <Umar ibn al-Farruxān aṭ -Tabarī certainly was—even though the manuscript traditions preserve only the Arabic writings of these authors themselves.32 Yet another court astrologer working among these Iranians, the Syrian Theophilus of Edessa (d. 785), refers in one of his Greek writings to works of astrology that the Persians had trans-lated into their language from Greek.33 Although he does not name books of Hermes among them, it is clear that he is aware of astrological works that had undergone a similar transmission into Middle Persian. It appears that all the astrologers in the court of al-Mans u-r—who knew each other personally, of course—must have been familiar with astrological Hermetica, in Middle Persian or in new Arabic transla-tions. These Hermetica were thus among the earliest known scientifi c texts in Arabic and were studied by scholars enjoying imperial patronage.

Given the evidence, one can defi nitely conclude that there was an unknown number of Hermetica in Middle Persian concerned with a variety of subjects in astrology. Already two specifi c Arabic Hermetic works defi nitely derive from Middle Persian (the Kitāb Asrār an-nugu-m and the Qadīb aD-Dahab mentioned above), and it seems certain that these were not the only ones written in that language. Meanwhile, the origins of most of the Arabic Hermetica and their relationships with the surviv-ing Greek Hermetica have remained largely obscure.34 Perhaps, then, more of the Arabic texts are translations not from Greek, but, unexpectedly, from Middle Persian. Research in this direction may shed more light on a scarcely charted Iranian path of transmission of relatively early Greek material into relatively early Arabic, a path altogether separate from that of the majority of books of Greek philosophy and medicine translated into Arabic. Still an important question remains: how, and when, did there come to be a Middle Persian Hermetic literature in the fi rst place?

2.3 The Later Testimonies of Sasanian Translation from Greek into Middle Persian

Ibn Nawbaxt was a member of the second generation of <Abbāsid court astrologers, and he is explicitly described as a translator of books from Persian into Arabic.35 His

32. Pingree 1989a: 229b–230a has argued that Māšā>allāh was indeed reading the original Middle Persian of Dorotheus at least.

33. See note 50.34. The fi rst of two exceptions is the Kyranis text identifi ed by Ullmann 1975, edited by Toral-

Niehoff 2004. This text has a Greek antecedent that survives in Greek as well as a medieval Latin translation; its path of transmission into Arabic is still uncertain. The second exception is a short paragraph in the Kitāb al-Mugtanā of Ibn Durayd identifi ed by Franz Rosenthal as identical to a Hermetic passage found in the fi fth-century Greek Stobaean Anthology. On this see section 5.3 in this volume.

35. Louis Massignon, “Nawbakht,” EI 2, 7.1043b–1044a. The testimony that he translated books is in the Fihrist: 333.14.

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

father (Nawbaxt) was one of the same group of astrologers mentioned in the previ-ous section: <Umar ibn al-Farruxān, Māšā>allāh, al-Fazārī, and Theophilus. The son took his father’s place before the end of al-Mans u-r’s reign in 775, and he continued in the service of the caliph ar-Rašīd (r. 786–809), working in ar-Rašīd’s library.36 Ibn Nawbaxt offers the most important testimony about exactly when works of Hermes were translated from Greek into Middle Persian. According to him, this happened already in the third century, by the order of the Sasanian emperor Šāpu-r I (r. ca 240–271). The specifi c claim, made in a passage also constituting the earliest known history of science in Arabic, deserves careful investigation. The history appeared in Ibn Nawbaxt’s now lost Kitāb an-Nhmt>n, surviving excerpts of which, reported in the Fihrist of an-Nadīm (wr. 987), are summarized briefl y here.37 Ibn Nawbaxt’s his-tory is based almost entirely on older Iranian traditions.

His story begins during the reign of Dahāk son of Kay (Arabic ad-Dahhāk ibn Qayy), a demonic tyrant of Iranian mythology whose dominion on the earth lasted for one thousand years, the second millennium of the world.38 He gathered scholars together in <Irāq in twelve citadels corresponding to the twelve signs of the zodiac. These scholars ruled the people and were obeyed by them until a certain prophet appeared. We are not given information about the prophet in the account. The peo-ple, upon hearing the message of this prophet, rejected the scholars, who then went off to different countries where they became kings. Hermes, who left Babylon to become king of Egypt, was one of these sages. He then taught the Egyptians the ancient sciences. The text says the following: “Each one of them went to a country to inhabit it, to be in it, and to become chief of its people. There was among them a scholar named Hermes. He was among them one of the most perfect in intellect, most accurate in knowledge, and most subtle in investigation. He went down to the land of Egypt and ruled its people as king, civilized it, improved the conditions of its inhabitants, and revealed his knowledge there.”39 As the story goes, time passed until eventually Alexander the Macedonian conquered the Persian Empire of Dārāibn Dārā (i.e., Darius) and brought the learning of the ancients to an end by

36. He succeeded his father as a court astrologer to al-Mansu-r (r. 754–775) (Ibn al-Qift.ī, 409.4–6). The Fihrist, 333.12–16 (Flügel 274.8–9), reports that he was in the ¢izānat al-hikma for ar-Rašīd, who ruled 786–809. On this library, see D. Gutas and K. van Bladel, “Bayt al-hikma,” Encyclopaedia of Islam Three, forthcoming.

37. Fihrist 299.9–301.2 (Flügel 238.9–239.31). For more notes on this passage, see also chapter 4below on the biographies of Hermes in Arabic. The name an-Nhmt>n (with short vowels unknown) has never been satisfactorily explained, though presumably it masks a distorted Middle Persian or other Iranian word.

38. On Dahāk see CHI 3(1) 426–427; on his place in Persian legend, idem, 383–387. Note that Dahāk’s activity is located in Babylon, in other words, Iraq, in the ninth-century Pahlavi books (for references see CHI 3(1) 426).

39. Fihrist 300.6–8 (Flügel 239.2–5): fa-amma kullu <ālimin minhum baldatan li-yaskunahāwa-yaku-na f īhā wa-yatara>>asa <alā ahlihā wa-kāna f īhim <ālimun yuqālu lahu- Hirmisu wa-kāna min akmalihim <aqlan wa-as.wabihim <ilman wa-altafi him nazaran fa-saqata ilā ardi Mis.ra fa-malaka ahlahāwa-<ammara ardahā wa-as.laha ahwāla sukkānihā wa-azhara <ilmahu- fīhā.

Background

destroying all the written texts, except for a number of Persian books that he plun-dered and had translated into Greek and Egyptian (ar-Ru-mī wa-l-Qibtī), while some of the ancient sciences also survived scattered in India and China. After Alexander’s destruction, a period of ignorance fell over Iraq (i.e., the region that was to become the administrative center of the Sasanian Empire). This came to an end when Ardašīr, the founder of the Sasanid dynasty (r. ca 224–ca 241), began to bring together the remains of the ancient Iranian writings. His son and successor, Šāpu-r I, contin-ued the effort. Some of the authors whose works were translated under Šāpu-r are named: among others, Dorotheus, Ptolemy, and “Hermes the Babylonian, who had been king over Egypt” (Hirmisu l-Bābilīyu llaDī kāna malikan <alā Mis.r). All these books that originally derived from Babylon (allatī kāna as.luhā bi-Bābil) were stud-ied and taught in Persian. Later, the Sasanid emperor ¢usro I (r. 531–579) again renewed interest in the sciences. Thus ends Ibn Nawbaxt’s history, the earliest extant history of science in Arabic. The translation of works of Hermes of Egypt into Middle Persian is specifi cally said to have been effected by the early Sasanid Šāpu-r I, along with astrological works of other Greek authors.

In this account, the Egyptian Hermes is originally from Babylon. This explains the Babylonian epithet of Hermes in the Arabic translation of the Middle Persian version of Dorotheus, discussed above: it appears to refl ect an idea in the Middle Persian reception of the Hermetica claiming that they were effectively of Babylonian origin. It should be remembered that Babylon (i.e., Mesopotamia) in this story is meant to indicate a territory that was part of the Persian Empire. (The Sasanian capital, Ctesiphon, was near ancient Babylon.) This becomes clear when Ibn Nawbaxt says that Darius refused to pay the tribute imposed by Alexander on the people of Babylon and the Kingdom of Persia.40 It is well known that Mesopotamia was considered an important part of Iran in later Sasanian times.41 In this account, ancient Babylonian science—including the teachings of Hermes—is conceived as part of the ancient heritage of Iran, proper to the Persians.

As it is related, there are three episodes in this history. First there is the very ancient period during which the sciences are gathered in Babylon under Dahāk but then scattered, partly by the agency of Hermes who went to Egypt and preserved them there. The next episode is that of Alexander’s theft and destruction of Persian knowledge. The last episode is the Persian recovery of the scattered, stolen sciences in more recent times. It will be useful to recognize that these three components have been put together to form a continuous narrative of the history of Iranian science, but that there is no evidence that they all belonged together originally.

40. Fihrist 300.10 (Flügel 239.7).41. Ibn ¢urradāDbih, 5.18–19: Tumma abtadi>u bi-Dikri s-Sawādi iD kānat mulu-ku l-Fursi tusammīhi

dil-i Ērānšahr ay qalbu l-<Irāq, “Next, I begin by reporting on the Sawād [= lower Mesopotamia] since the kings of the Persians used to call it [Persian words given:] ‘the heart of Iran,’ that is, the heart of Iraq.”

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

This eighth-century account of Ibn Nawbaxt is undoubtedly based on a legend or group of legends that existed in Middle Persian, now surviving mostly in abbrevi-ated form. Versions of this history of science became widely known in early Islamic Iran and Iraq, and it was also referred to, in forms usually much less detailed, by a number of Iranian and other authors in Arabic, Middle Persian, and Greek in the early <Abbāsid period (very roughly 750–900). Below is a list of testimonies to this history, with notes explaining what portion of the fuller version of the account each testimony conveys.42 The language in which the account survives is indicated in parentheses, MP standing for Middle Persian. As one can see, the second compo-nent in Ibn Nawbaxt’s history, the destruction and theft of Iranian science by Alexander, was particularly widespread.

1. Denkard (a ninth-century Zoroastrian Middle Persian compilation based on sources of the Sasanian period):a. book III43 (MP): King Ardašīr and Tosar (a.k.a. Tansar), a Magian priest,

credited with reviving Persian science.b. book IV44 (MP): Lengthy account of the scattering of the Avesta in the

wake of Alexander’s destruction and theft, its restoration by Ardašīr, how Šāpu-r I gathered the astrological, medical, and philosophical writings that were scattered in the Roman Empire (Hrom) and India;45 and the continued developments of philosophy and religious dialectic under ¢usro I.

2. The Greater Bundahišn46 (MP): Alexander sent the Zand (“commen-tary” on the Avesta) to the Roman Empire, killed the Magi, and burned the Avesta.

42. Several of these are discussed in the context of <Abbāsid ideology and the Graeco-Arabic translation movement by Gutas 1998: 34–45.

43. Section 420 trans. of de Menasce (1973). Text in transcription and Italian translation by Cereti 2001: 42–45.

44. English translation of this passage from the ninth-century Middle Persian compilation in Zaehner 1961: 114–125; Romanized Middle Persian text Zaehner 1955: 31–32 (and earlier, uncorrected English translation 7–9); for comments and bibliography see Gutas 1998: 35n14. On the basis of the near-demonstrative pronoun im referring to ¢usro I (“this present” king) in the text, Bartholomae 1920: 9n2 (note continuing on the next page) thought that this passage dated to his reign, that is, to the sixth century. This view was later held by Harold Bailey 1943: 155, and especially 155n2, and by Zaehner 1955: 11–12, assessing the claim by discussing the passage in its philological and stylistic aspects, respectively. Boyce also accepted this view (1968a: 5), and so do I. English translations in Shaki 1981 and Shaked 1994: 99–103, with important bibliographic and interpretative annotations. A transcription with accompanying Italian translation is in Cereti 2001: 59–61.

45. Our interpretation of the motive behind these translations depends to a great extent on our understanding of one Middle Persian circumposition (az . . . be). The scientific texts Šāpu-rsought for translation into Persian are called nibegīhā-iz ī az den be : that is, either “also writings apart from the religion,” in other words, nonreligious works (thus Shaki 1981, 119), or “writings based on the religion” (thus Shaked 1994: 100; cf. 1980: 21–22, where both meanings of az . . . be are discussed).

46. Bailey, 1943: 153; Anklesaria 1956: 274–277, §14.

Background

3. Māhānkard47 (ca 750) (Arabic translation from MP): Alexander destroyed the original ancient Persian books after having them trans-lated into Greek.

4. Ibn Nawbaxt48 (Arabic by Iranian author, cited by the Fihrist of an-Nadīm): His is the account summarized above. It is the only one of these accounts to mention Hermes and Hermetic books specifi cally.

5. Māšā>allāh49 (Greek and Latin translations of Arabic by Iranian author): Some of Persian science survives in India.

6. Theophilus of Edessa50 (d. 785) (Greek by a Syrian author): The Persians who loved wisdom translated Greek books into their own language and used Greek astrology.

7. Ibn Qutayba51 (d. 889) (Arabic based explicitly on MP sources): Alexander conquered the kingdom of Iran and burned the books of their religion.

8. Abu- <Īsā ibn al-Munaggim52 (fl . ca 900) (Arabic by Iranian author): Šāpu-r I received books as gifts and as plunder from the Roman emperor Gordian.

9. Ardā Wirāz Nāmag53 (MP): Egypt-dwelling54 Alexander the Roman55

plundered the sacred Persian books.

47. He is quoted in Arabic translation by Sa<īd ibn ¢urāsānxwarrah in the introduction to his translation of the Book of Nativities of Pseudo-Zoroaster. See Krause 1936: 471–472, Afnan 1964: 77–78,and the notes by Gutas 1998: 37–38. Afnan’s English translation of the unpublished prologue to the book explains that Māhānkard translated the book in the days of Abu- Muslim (d. 755) from the language of the religion (den-dibīrīh), meaning from Avestan or Pāzand (Middle Persian in Avestan script), into Darī Persian (apparently Middle Persian in the common book script). Later it was translated into Arabic by Sa<īd ibn ¢urāsānxwarrah.

48. Fihrist 299.9–301.2 (Flügel 238.9–239.31).49. The full version of this story is not found in an extant work of Māšā>allāh, but it was evidently

known to him as the references to Persian learning preserved in India show, which are derived from a bibliography of his found only in translation in the Latin Liber Aristotelis of Hugo of Santalla and in a Byzantine Greek translation (Burnett-Pingree 1997: 6–7; see also Pingree 1989a: 228b).

50. CCAG 1.129–131. The relevant words are: oØ dç jas� sóm èÎam �param PeqrËm rofi¨a| éqarsa≠

s�| <Ekkgmij�| b¨bkot| s© èatsËm lesafiq�ramse| ck›ssz . . . “The lovers of wisdom among the Persians throughout the East translated the Greek books into their own language . . . ” He mentions by name specifi c authors of astrological works: Dorotheus, Valens, Critodemus, and Timocharis. Theophilus of Edessa was a court astrologer for al-Mansu-r and al-Mahdī and had access to Middle Persian traditions (Pingree 1989a). He probably knew Ibn Nawbaxt personally.

51. Ibn Qutayba, Kitāb al-Ma<ārif, 653.2–5, citing al-As ma< ī (d. 828) and “books of the life-stories (siyar) of the Iranians” (652).

52. Stern 1972: 447–448 and 454; see more on this below.53. Vahman 1986: text 76–77, trans. 191.54. The epithet “Egypt-dwelling,” Muzrāyīg-mānišn, may refl ect a report derived from the Middle

Persian translation of the Alexander Romance, which gives Alexander a Pharaonic genealogy, and which mentions Alexander’s burial in Egyptian Alexandria at the end of the story (Alexander Romance, ed. Budge, text 252, trans. 142). On the Middle Persian antecedent to the Syriac Alexander Romance, see van Bladel 2007a: 61–64.

55. To inhabitants of the Sasanian Persian Empire, the Western lands were “Roman” regardless of the period.

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

10. Šahristānīhā ī Ērān56 (MP): Alexander destroyed the Avesta, which was stored in writing at Samarqand.

11. @amza al-Isfahānī, wr. 96157 (Arabic on the basis of eight collated translations of the MP ¢wadāy Nāmag and the account of Mu-sā ibn <Īsā al-Kisrawī): Alexander, jealous of the unparalleled knowledge of the Persian nation, fi rst translated what he needed from Persian, then destroyed the rest, killing the Magi, too. Although he destroyed their books of religion, he had translated their books dealing with philosophy, astrology, medicine, and agriculture from Persian into Greek and Egyptian (al-Qibt īya) and sent them to Alexandria.

12. Tansar-Nāma58 (New Persian translation from Arabic translation of a late Sasanian MP work): Alexander destroyed the Avesta.

13. Den-vijirgard59 (New Persian in Pahlavi script): Alexander destroyed the Nasks (chapters of the Avesta) except for those concerned with medicine and the stars, which he had translated into Greek (“Roman”). This is a very late text (fi fteenth–eighteenth century?) but contains this interest-ing tradition specifying the types of Mazdaean books taken by Alexander. It may be based on a much older source, or sources, because it lists all twenty-one canonical Nasks.

This list is far from complete. Versions of these stories about ancient Iranian science became common knowledge, appearing in many other Arabic works, early and later, including aṭ -Tabarī,60 al-Hāšimī,61 Ibn @azm,62 aT-§a<labī,63 Ibn Abī Us aybi<a,64 Ibn

56. Bailey 1943: 153–154; Markwart 1931: 9; Daryaee 2002: 13 and 17.57. @amza, 1921/1922: 18 (intro.), 30–31 and 32 (fasl 4, bāb 1, under “Alexander” and “Ardašīr”).58. Bailey 1943: 156–157; Boyce, 1968b: 37.59. West 1892: 446–447.60. at-Tabarī, Ta>rīx, 1.701.9–10, refers to Alexander’s destruction of Persian books and offi cial

records.61. Al-Hāšimī (107v) relates that, according to “some Persians,” Bu-Dāsaf was from ancient Babylon,

and he fl ed from Tahmuru-T (i.e., Tahmu-raT) to India, where he taught them a religion (azhara lahum āyātin wa-šarā>i<a) and discovered that they kept astronomical records. Bu-Dāsaf is the Iranian (and Arabic) adaptation of the name of the Bodhisattva. According to the Iranian history of science under examination here, Indian doctrines derive in part from Iran, and in particular from Babylon (presum-ably Babylon under Dahāk). Bu-Dāsaf was therefore the Indian counterpart to Hermes, who went to Egypt. Both fi gures were used to explain the far geographical reach of the religion of idolaters, later designated “Sābians.” (On Sābianism, see the chapter 3.)

62. Ibn @azm 1.138 (in the section al-Kalām <alā l-Yahu-d wa-<alā man ankara t-taTlīT min an-Nas.ārāwa-maDhab as.-Sābi>īn wa-<alā man aqarra bi-nubu-wat Zarādušt). See also Pines 1990: 43–44.

63. AT-§a<labī 2002, 609, claims two sources: (1) unnamed historians who say that Alexander killed the magi and burned their books and (2) al-Murtad ā (evidently the Imāmī Abu- l-Qāsim <Alī ibn al-@usayn), who says that the ancient Iranian books were of gold and therefore were melted down for cash.

64. 1.9.7–10. He cites al-Mubaššir ibn Fātik’s Kitāb Muxtār al-hikam for this information. Interestingly, Ibn Abī Usaybi<a’s history of medicine describes Alexander’s plunder of the Zoroastrian books in connection with the origins of medicine. The implication of this story, then, is that medicinecame originally from Iran.

Background

¢aldu-n,65 and others.66 However, the ones given above are only the Middle Persian sources and translated Middle Persian sources, or are taken from authors who defi -nitely had access to Middle Persian sources directly or in immediate translation.67

Of these, only two of the older accounts (1b and 4), dating from the sixth and the eighth centuries, state both that the earliest Sasanid emperors translated books from Greek and that this restored what Alexander had allegedly stolen from Iran. The other accounts give either other versions of a similar story or merely references to this story, mentioning Alexander’s plunder, or the Sasanian reception, but not both in the same passage. Nevertheless, it is clear that a complete story of Alexander’s theft and the Sasanian restoration must have been well known.

Besides Ibn Nawbaxt (4), the Denkard (1b) also designates Šāpu-r I specifi cally as a proponent of the translation of learned books from foreign languages and ascribes to him the wish to assess some of the teachings that were newly translated into his language to determine whether they were compatible with (or, should be added to) the Avesta,68 the ancient scripture of the Mazdayasnian religion. This passage in the Denkard can be dated with certainty to the time of ¢usro I, the sixth century.69

Abu- <Īsā ibn al-Munaggim (8) wrote a “slender volume” (mugallad lat īf )70 of chronology, fragments of which are related by the Muntaxab Siwān al-Hikma (an epitome made between 1191 and 1241 from a late tenth-century history of philoso-phy) and the historian Abu- l-Fidā> (d. 1321). One of the excerpts of this work says that the Persian emperors took books from the territories of the Greeks and Romans

65. Ibn ¢aldu-n (trans. Rosenthal) 1958: 3.113–114.66. The basic idea of this story was apparently even taken over by an Armenian tradition. The

eighth-century Armenian historian known as Moses of Chorene adapted an account from an unknown Mar Abas, stating that Alexander ordered the translation into Greek of Chaldean records stored at Nineveh. Mar Abas is supposed to have found the Greek record there, taken from ancient historical records about Armenia, and to have brought them back to Armenia in Syriac and Greek. Then the Armenian king Vałaršak received them and inscribed part of the record on a stele in his palace at Nisibis. Another, similar Armenian account, the “Primary History,” based partly on Mar Abas, lacks any mention of Alexander the Great. Moses of Chorene, who claimed falsely to be writing in the fi fth century, is well known as a fabricator of stories, and we may suspect that the legend—explaining how ancient Armenian history can be recovered through a Greek text thanks to the actions of Alexander the Great—is just a part of his program to give Armenia a glorious past and to promote the Bagratid family. See Robert Thomson’s introduction to his annotated English translation of Moses Khorenats‘i 1978, especially 54–55, 60–61, and 82–85. (Thomson also provides a translation of the “Primary History,” just mentioned, as an appendix.) In any case, we may date his adoption of the story of Alexander’s translations to the late eighth century, the period in which Ibn Nawbaxt also wrote his Iranocentric version of the legend based on earlier sources.

67. A few examples of this story were discussed by Joseph Habby 1998, with the suggestion that the story that Alexander burned Persian books is connected with the story of the burning of the library at Alexandria.

68. The precise purpose lies with interpretation of the Middle Persian phrase abāg Abistāg abāzhandāxt, “compared (it) with the Avesta” or “added (it) to the Avesta.” For a discussion and history of the interpretation, see Shaki 1981: 121–122.

69. See note 44.70. Abu- l-Fidā> 1831, 2.11. Cf. Stern 1972: 439.

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

as plunder, and also that the Roman emperor Gordian III (r. 225–244) gave Šāpu-rbooks on astrology, geometry, mathematics, music, medicine, and mechanics as gifts (ahdāhā).71 Thanks to a posthumously published study of S. M. Stern, we know that Abu- <Īsā ibn al-Munaggim was very well acquainted with ancient historical sources from which he could have derived the report, including Christian chrono-graphic traditions translated from Greek or Syriac.72 Abu- <Īsā’s testimony would corroborate Ibn Nawbaxt’s statement about Šāpu-r’s interest in foreign books if it were independent from it. Some indications suggest that Abu- <Īsā’s source is the lost chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa (6 above), a colleague of Ibn Nawbaxt, and who wrote in Greek that the Persians who loved wisdom translated Greek works into their own language.73 In that case, it is easy to imagine that the two astrologers in the same court shared a common source and therefore do not constitute independent witnesses to the tradition. Nevertheless, it is surprising that Abu- <Īsā (whatever his source) gives such specifi c information about the agents on both sides, not only Šāpu-r but also Gordian, and also the means of exchange: sometimes books were received as gifts from Gordian, and sometimes books were taken as plunder in war. Stern explains, with some reservations, how a chronicler could have invented this: “One could well imagine that the author knew of the Zoroastrian story and found that one of the Roman emperors contemporary with Shāpu-r was Gordian, and thus concluded that it must have been he who gave to Shāpu-r the books which the latter ‘collected,’ according to the story. To be sure, if so, one would have expected rather the name of Valerian.”74 I accept Stern’s conclusion that there are too many lingering questions about the source of information to accept the report about Gordian and Šāpu-r as an unimpeachable witness, its specifi city of detail notwithstanding.

Of all the evidence reviewed above, only Ibn Nawbaxt states specifi cally that books of Hermes were among those translated under Šāpu-r. Moreover, no other account refers to Hermes’ departure from Babylon and his kingship in Egypt, unless we include the reference to the Babylonian Hermes found in the Arabic version of Dorotheus. It seems therefore that this fi rst episode in Ibn Nawbaxt’s history of sci-ence was not originally part of the narrative connected with Alexander, but is a later addition with the purpose of proving that the astrological teachings of the Egyptian Hermes derive from Iranian Babylon. When named as an author whose works were translated into Persian under Šāpu-r, Hermes is linked to the story of the destruction and restoration of the sciences in Iran. This must have allowed Iranian astrologers to think that the astrological writings of Hermes, which they knew in Middle Persian

71. Presented in Arabic and in translation by Stern 1972: 454 and 462; texts published in Muntaxabed. Dunlop 212–215, ed. Badawī 95.7–13, and abridged in Abu- l-Fidā> 1831: 82.12–14.

72. Stern 1972: 447–448.73. Stern 1972: 466n53 and Walzer 1950: 185–186 point out that Abu- <Īsā shares certain passages with

Agapius of Manbig, whose main source appears to have been Theophilus (see the discussion in section 5.1 in this volume).

74. Stern 1972: 448.

Background

and used for their work, were not foreign sciences, despite their apparently Egyptian origin, but rather they were actually from Babylon in the time of Dahāk, and con-nected with ancient Iranian history. The account also seems to refl ect an under-standing that the works of Hermes were allegedly much older than Alexander; therefore a prior episode to the story was required in which the sciences of Iran were diffused to Egypt even earlier than Alexander.

Ibn Nawbaxt mentions Ptolemy, Dorotheus, and Hermes by name as authors whose works were translated into Persian, and it is likely, given his professional expertise as court astrologer and his work as a translator of Persian books into Arabic in the court of the fi rst <Abbāsid caliphs, that he knew of works by these authors in their Middle Persian form.75 As already discussed, studies have shown that different works of these three authors were in fact translated from Middle Persian into Arabic. One might imagine that such Middle Persian translations would have some indication of the source from which they were translated, or would declare the patron supporting the translations (such as Šāpu-r), but all those Middle Persian works are lost along with any such possible evidence. What remains uncer-tain is not whether Greek Hermetica were translated into Middle Persian, but whether they were translated as early as the third century, because all the evidence for Šāpu-r’s involvement in translations from Greek into Middle Persian comes from three or more centuries later. There is no defi nite proof that any translations were made so early.

Because ¢usro I was also certainly a sponsor of translations of non-Iranian scien-tifi c works into Persian,76 a skeptic might suggest that ¢usro’s supporters invented this history in order to justify their adoption of foreign sciences in the sixth century, and that Šāpu-r’s interest in the sciences was fabricated to give ¢usro a venerable precedent. There are possible objections to this skeptical argument. The account of the Denkard (1b), written in the time of ¢usro himself, is unlikely to have been believable to its audience if there were not already by that time known Middle Persian translations of Greek works of considerable age. The sixth-century Denkard account states that copies of the works translated under Šāpu-r were placed in some kind of special treasury or library, implying that they were to be found in such a place in the time of ¢usro.77 Also, if one supposes that the legend is a pure fabrication of later Sasanian times, then one also has to explain why its original, pro- Iranian author was

75. Fihrist 300.25–27 (Flügel 284.9–10).76. A brief survey of evidence is supplied by Dignas and Winter 2007: 263–265. See also Gutas 1983.77. The reading of the name of this treasury is disputed: it is the ganj ī špyk>n, the last word subject

to many proposals for emendations. Shaki (1981: 115n2) suggests emending the word to read šāhīgān;the phrase then meaning “royal treasury” or “treasury of the palace” (MacKenzie 1971: 79 and Durkin-Meisterernst 2004: 314b); and Shaked 1994: 100n3 suggests that we read the word as apparently written: šabīgān, “night(-quarters),” the idea being that these books in the treasury are kept in a place convenient to be brought forth to be read to kings at night. Durkin-Meisterernst 2004: 315b has rather šabānīg for “of the night” in Middle Persian. The term remains obscure for now.

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

willing to accept a severe rupture in the history of the ancient sciences of Iran, along with Iranian dependence on other peoples for what belonged originally to them. If any fi ction was acceptable, this one is far from an ideal account. The concession, implicit in the story, that Iran needed other countries for its own sciences reduces the likelihood that the account is completely fi ctional simply because a better fi ction could have been concocted, in which Iran had always been independent. However, all of these interpretations of the limited evidence operate from likelihoods, not sure testimonies. It remains that three centuries separate Šāpu-r I and ¢usro I, the inter-vening period allowing for many events in Persian intellectual history about which we know exceedingly little. The present task is not just to test the hypothesis of a third-century reception, but also to see whether the reception of specifi cally Hermetic works was or could have been effected at this early time. More evidence is required.

2.4 Some Supposedly Sasanian Horoscopes

Several eminent Iranists have already accepted the claim of the reports given above, that the Iranian reception of foreign science did indeed occur in the third century.78

Other scholars have asked for more convincing evidence for a transmission of Greek works into Middle Persian at that early time.79 David Pingree thought he had found a testimony in favor of the earlier date in two horoscopes present in the Arabic ver-sion of Dorotheus’ Carmen Astrologicum, a translation from Middle Persian. He dated these horoscopes to October 10, 281, and February 26, 381, and claimed that they “were added to the text as illustrations by the Sassanian scholars.”80 If this were all correct, it would clearly point to a third-century Middle Persian translation from the Greek original, after which Persian horoscopes were added to the text. James Holden has argued, however, that the earlier of the two horoscopes is better dated much earlier, to October 4, 44, “which is consistent with the dates in Dorotheus’ other example charts.” This also falls within the lifetime of the fi rst-century Dorotheus. As Holden puts it, Pingree overlooked the more likely early date “since he wishes to ascribe it to the Persians.”81 In the case of the later horoscope, dated by Pingree to February 26, 381, the birth date of the native (the individual about whom the horoscope was made) was in Mihrmāh, the Iranian “month of Mihr.” The Persian name might indicate an Iranian context for the horoscope and argues that Dorotheus already existed in Middle Persian by that time. Then again, the date could have been

78. For example, see Henning 1942a: 245, followed by Boyce 1968b: 37.79. For example, see Gignoux 2001.80. Pingree 1989a: 229b; cf. Pingree’s praefatio to his edition of Dorotheus, XV. Pingree has argued

through other, unpublished, evidence that the horoscope supposedly of 281 was cited by a Middle Persian commentary on Dorotheus used by Māšā>allāh in the Middle Persian original. The evidence is too complicated to repeat here without lengthy digression. For the full argument, see Pingree 1989a: 229b–230b.

81. Holden 1996: 34n83.

Background

converted into Persian terms. Moreover, another problem is that it is dated in the 96th year of an era appearing in the much-distorted Arabic as that of “Darīnu-s.” Pingree has interpreted this as the era of Diocletian, which is doubtful.82

If Pingree’s argument were correct, this would constitute the only known directly datable indication of a scientifi c translation from Greek into Middle Persian earlier than the sixth century (and the court of ¢usro I). One element in Ibn Nawbaxt’s history of science in the Sasanian period would thus approach confi rmation, and one would be that much more willing to assign translations of works of other authors he mentioned together with Dorotheus, including Hermes, to the third cen-tury. Unfortunately, the evidence does not seem as strong as that.

So far, it has been shown that there is a very widely attested Eastern tradition dat-ing back to Sasanian times, at least to the sixth century,83 claiming that the Sasanids made an effort to adopt Greek science, and that this was linked to an ideology of restoration of lost Iranian science. The horoscopes adduced by Pingree seem less reli-able. It is necessary to look for other signs of translation activity in the court of Šāpu-rI and the existence of such an ideology in his time, and particularly for evidence pointing to translations of Hermetica. If even some of the Arabic Hermetica do date from the time of Šāpu-r I—again, the third century ce—then they may shed light on the earliest communities that used Hermetica.84 For the third century seems to have been the acme of interest in the Hermetica in the Roman Empire, when many believe that the authors of the Hermetica were fl ourishing, and certainly the period during which authors outside of Egypt began to notice the Hermetic texts. Moreover, if any of the extant Arabic Hermetica can be shown to have been translated from Greek into Middle Persian at such an early stage, then these Arabic Hermetica will in that case be signifi cant not only for their intrinsic value and their place within the history of the Hermetica, but also for our understanding of the religious and intellectual movements of antiquity, of the history of Roman thought and science, and of Sasanian intellectual history. They will represent a chain of transmission from Greek into Arabic that passed outside of the transformation of the Roman Empire into a society of contending Christian orthodoxies. This last point may be the most impor-tant of all, for the manuscript traditions by which we know Greek and Roman antiq-uity are mostly formed by the selecting and rejecting hands of later copyists with their own preferences.85 Do any of the Arabic Hermetica represent a literature aban-doned in Greek but transmitted, in altered form, by this Iranian route?86

82. Pingree 1973: 35b. The horoscope roughly matches the position of the planets at this date.83. See the notes on the Dēnkard (1.b given above).84. On the milieu of the early Hermetica, see Fowden 1993a: 155–195.85. On this point with regard to the Hermetica, see Fowden 1993a: 8–9.86. Martin Plessner posed essentially the same question, though without reference to Iran, as one

of the fundamental questions pertaining to the Hermetica waiting to be solved (1954a: 45): “To which degree does Hermetic literature in the Arabic language enlarge and complete our knowledge of the Hermetic heritage in the classical languages?”

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

2.5 Hermetica in the Time of Špr I

There is more to be said about the era of Šāpu-r suggesting that it was a likely time for the transmission of Hermetica into Middle Persian.87 It is to this evidence that I turn now, but emphasizing from the outset that the result is a suggestion, not a sure proof. Five centuries passed between Šāpu-r I and the earliest Arabic account of his alleged support for translations. The intervening period is generally known today as late antiquity, during which the chief religions of Western Eurasia were organized sys-tematically with canons of scriptures, new religious hierarchies, and their own law codes. By the end of this period, much of the process of selection for preservation of the ancient Greek texts that would be passed down to us had been completed.

In order to test the hypothesis of a third-century transmission of Hermetic texts or of Greek literature in general into Middle Persian, one must search for evidence not in later accounts but in the third century itself. If Šāpu-r or members of his court

87. Because so little Middle Persian literature survives, some will perhaps even question even the existence of written literature of this kind in the Middle Persian language as early as the third century. Doubts along these lines seem excessively skeptical to me. Four pieces of evidence point to the existence of a lively culture of scribes capable of reading, writing, and enjoying Middle Persian written works in this period (a, b, c, and d as follows):

a. several of the Middle Persian inscriptions surviving from the third century include references to scribes (including the “signatures” of the scribes of some of the inscriptions), references to individuals bearing the title dabīrbed (chief scribe), and mention of written records (see Ahmad Tafaz.z.olī, “Dabīr i. In the pre-Islamic Period,” EIr, 6.540a-541b, for references, and a full index to the occurrence of the words for scribe and writing in the inscriptions in Gignoux 1972 under the Middle Persian entries dpyr/dpywr ‘scribe’ and npšty ‘écrit’);

b. Middle Persian graffi ti and a Middle Persian letter on parchment have survived at Dura-Europos (captured by the Sasanians ca 257), written by scribes who were clearly able to produce writing readily and easily (see D. N. MacKenzie, “Dura Europos. ii. The inscriptions,” EIr, 7.593b–594a, for overview and references);

c. And not least, Mani wrote his Middle Persian Šābuhragān (discussed below) for Šāpu-r, and there can be no doubt that he expected someone to be able to read it.

d. Experts on the Avesta generally agree that the system of letters in which the Avesta comes down to us was not created until the fourth or fi fth century. However, the earlier existence of a written Avesta, in Arsacid times as claimed by Zoroastrian book tradition, has long been debated (see J. Kellens, “Avesta,” EIr, 3.35a–44a, especially 3.35b–36b; also K. Hoffman, “Avestan Language i. The Avestan Script,” EIr,3.47a–51a, especially 3.50b). It seems especially diffi cult to me to disregard completely Mani’s alleged statement, preserved by his students in the Coptic translation of the originally Aramaic Kephalaia,that Zarathushtra’s disciples wrote his words down “in (books) they are reading today” (J. Kellens, op. cit., 36a; cf. Henning 1942b: 47). The relevant passage is: . . . zaradhs sax jwme alla ne[f] / [machths etauei m]NNswf aurpmeue ausxei mnn . . . / [ . . . ] etouw¥ Mmau Mpooue

mpr . . . (Polotsky and Böhlig, 1940: 7.31–33) = “but [ . . . / . . . ] Zarathushtra (did not) write books. Rather, hi[s / disciples who came a]fter him, they remembered and they wrote [ . . . / . . . ] that they read today [ . . . ].” (Gardner 1995: 13, slightly modifi ed). Even though this probably does not point to a written rendering of the Avesta itself, but to other texts, it certainly must be regarded as evidence for books among Iranian magi in the third century (Mani lived 216–276), perhaps attributed to Zoroaster. Then again, the passage just cited from the Kephalaia may be a later invention attributed to Mani.

For a few more traces of literacy in the Sasanian Empire of the third century, see also Huyse 2008:145–146.

Background

sponsored such translations, the texts that were translated from Greek naturally were chosen from what was available at the time. Greek literature in the third cen-tury was full of new religious and cosmological ideas, “Gnostic” speculations, alchemical mysteries, and oracles, among much else. Astrology was thriving, and Ptolemy’s works, which would become some of the most infl uential in all of history, written just a few decades before, had already begun to acquire authority. The Christian church, a collection of sometimes persecuted communities with widely varying interpretations of the message of Jesus and other ancient teachers, had no group easily capable of enforcing an orthodoxy over the others. Paganism still fl our-ished. It was the era in which Manichaeism was born in the Persian Empire and began to spread rapidly with Šāpu-r’s own consent. The third century was also the time in which the movement known today as Neoplatonism began, thanks to Plotinus and his pupil, the Hellenized Aramaean Porphyry. In this time the Neoplatonic school tradition of Alexandria, familiar to historians of Arabic philoso-phy as the source of the Arabic medical and philosophical curricula, did not yet exist. The revival of the study of Aristotle was only just underway,88 while other philosophical traditions such as Stoicism and Cynicism still found adherents. Hermetic literature in Greek also came into wide circulation in this century, as is known from the Greek testimonia, and it included all the types of scientifi c learning typical of the period, including alchemy, astrology, cosmology, philosophy of the soul, and theology.

There is good evidence that Šāpu-r was open-minded and receptive to new ideas. The prophet Mani, whose new religion was intended to supersede the others, and who wrote his canonical scriptures in Aramaic, also dedicated a paracanonical work to Šāpu-r that he wrote in (or had immediately translated into) the emperor’s native Middle Persian. Naming it Šābuhragān for its recipient, Mani boldly stated in its opening, “The religion I have chosen is greater and better89 than the other religions of the ancients in ten respects.”90 This indicates that Mani considered Šāpu-r to be open to his teaching, and perhaps that the latter had asked Mani to state why his religion was worth considering. It is interesting to linger a moment on some of what follows in the preserved text. The fi rst of the ten reasons given by Mani was that his religion was to be universal: it was to be rendered in all lan-guages, and not restricted to one language and one people as he considered the

88. Alexander of Aphrodisias, who helped give new life to Aristotelian studies, fl ourished around 200.

89. Because Zoroastrianism was known to its adherents as the Good Religion, Weh Den, it seems that Mani was consciously competing by calling his religion “better,” wehdar.

90. Den īg man wizīd az abārīgān den ī pešenagān pad dah xīr frāy ud wehdar ast. This and the following excerpts are given in the transcription of Boyce 1975: 29–30. The translations are my own. Cf. the publication of the text by Andreas and Henning 1933: 295. It is clear that this was from the opening of the book from the testimony of al-Bīru-nī, ATār, 208.9ff, which gives an Arabic paraphrase of this same passage.

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

other religions to be.91 However we interpret this statement in its specifi cs, it shows both an ambient interest in translation and a recognition of the importance of translations. Mani’s second reason was that, although the other religions had lost their original messages after the demise of their founders, his was organized so as to preserve his teaching perfectly.92 Clearly this indicates a concern, perhaps one shared by Šāpu-r, about the authenticity of the ancient Iranian traditions that had come down to his time.

One could perhaps situate the motive for the translations of Greek books into Middle Persian against the background of such questions. According to the accounts reviewed above, the Greek books translated into Persian were considered to have been the remnants of the ancient wisdom of Iran. Šāpu-r’s Persian translations only “restored” them to their original people, in this ideology. Is it is plausible then that the Persian emperors, and Šāpu-r in particular, really believed that they were recover-ing their own people’s heritage, the authentic truth of the ancient Iranians? There is evidence suggesting that they would have believed this, and that this was more likely to happen in the third century ce than at any other time. There were books in Greek, mostly lost today but newly in circulation in the third century, attributed to Zoroaster and other ancient Iranian sages. These are the sorts of works that could be expected to attract the attention of a Persian emperor and, perhaps, stimulate royal support for translation from Greek. Šāpu-r’s contemporary, the philosopher Porphyry, wrote,

At that time93 there were many Christians and others, including the sectari-ans that had been led out of the ancient philosophy, students of Adelphius and Aquilinus, who had gotten hold of most of the works of Alexander of Libya, Philocomus, Demostratus, and Lydus, and who published the revela-tions of Zoroaster, Zostrianus, Nicotheus, Allogenes, Messus, and others of that kind. They deceived many, being themselves deceived, claiming that Plato had not come close to the depths of intelligible being.

Therefore, making many refutations at our discussion meetings, he [Plotinus] wrote a book that we have entitled Against the Gnostics,94 and he

91. Yek, ku den ī ahenagān pad yek šahr ud yek izwān bu-d. Ēg den ī man ād ku pad harw šahr ud pad wisp izwān paydāg bawād ud pad šahrān du-rān kešīhād. “First, because the religions of those of old were in one country and one tongue. But my religion is such that it shall appear in every land and in all languages, and shall be taught in distant lands.”

92. Dudīg, ku den ī pešen, andom dāš sārārān pākān andar bu-d hend. ud ce>on sārārān ahrāft hend, egišān den wihurīd, ud pad andarz ud kirdagān sust bu-d hend, ud pad [break in text] . . . [eg den ī man pad nibegān] zīndagān, pad hammozagān, ispasagān, wizīdagān ud niyošagān, ud pad wihīh ud kirdagān, dā o abdom pattayād. “Second, because the religions of the ancients, as long as the leaders in it were pure, . . . , and as the leaders were raised up (i.e., ascended to heaven), then their religion was confused, and in commandments and deeds they became lax, and in [break in text] . . . [Then my religion in] living [books], in teachers, bishops, Elect, and Hearers will last until the end.”

93. The reference is to the time of the Emperor Gallienus (cf. Vita Plotini 12), who ruled 253–268.Šāpu-r ruled until 270 or 272. Plotinus died in 270.

94. The section of Plotinus’ Enneads that received the title Against the Gnostics is numbered 2.9.

Background

left to us the task of judging the rest of it. Amelius went on as far as forty books writing against the book of Zostrianus. I, Porphyry, have made numer-ous refutations of the book of Zoroaster demonstrating that it is both falsely attributed and recent, and fabricated by those who adhere to the sect to create the belief that the doctrines they had chosen to put fi rst in rank were those of the ancient Zoroaster.95

Thus we have the unimpeachable testimony of Porphyry that pseudo-Persian, indeed pseudo-Zoroastrian works were in circulation in Greek in the mid-third century, during the reign of Šāpu-r, and that he, his teacher, and his colleagues were aware that they were recent compositions.96 Porphyry grouped these pseudo- Zoroastrian works together with works generally called Gnostic today. This is the kind of material one would expect to attract the attention of a Persian emperor concerned with the authentic traditions of ancient Iran: books in Greek claiming to be derived from ancient Iran.

How close Plotinus was to the intellectual currents of the east in that period may be judged by an earlier section of his biography. In Egypt Plotinus had met his teacher, the infl uential Ammonius. “From that day he stayed with Ammonius con-tinually. He acquired such a disposition in philosophy that he became eager to try to acquire even the (philosophy) practiced among the Persians and the (philosophy) prospering among the Indians. When the Emperor Gordian was about to go against the Persians, (Plotinus) joined the army and went along, now thirty-eight years old—for he had studied eleven whole years under Ammonius. When Gordian per-ished in Mesopotamia, Plotinus barely escaped and reached Antioch safely.”97 This passage tells us that after his education in Egypt, Plotinus was in the army of the very emperor who is reported by Abu- <Īsā ibn al-Munaggim’s source to have pro-vided Šāpu-r with books of science as a gift. The phrase sû| paq� so¥| Påqrai| (scil. fiikorofi¨a|) . . . ja≠ sû| paq� so¥| $ Imdo¥| jasoqhotlåmg|, “the philosophy practiced among the Persians and the philosophy prospering among the Indians,” must refer to intellectual currents understood to be happening in the east at that time.98 It is,

95. Vita Plotini, 16 (my translation; emphasis added).96. Zoroaster is reported by Arnobius, Adversus nationes I.52, to have been the nepos (nephew or

grandson) of Zostrianus. As far as I know, this is the only clue to Zostrianus’ supposed identity and Persian background. The book of Allogenes, addressed to “Messos,” survives in Coptic translation, to be mentioned below.

97. Vita Plotini 3 (my translation).98. We learn how near to each other in history and in geography Plotinus and Mani were from

Alexander of Lycopolis, who reported that Mani accompanied Šāpu-r on one of his campaigns against the Romans. His wording makes it almost certain that it was the campaign against Valerian (256–260), and not the campaign against Gordian III (242–244), and in any case one would expect the Prophet of Light to have accompanied the emperor at the later of the two times, after his infl uence at court had grown. Alexander of Lycopolis, Contra Manichaei opiniones 4.19–22: “Manichaeus himself is said to have lived during the reign of Valerianus and to have accompanied Šāpu-r the Persian king during his military campaigns; but having offended him in some way, he was put to death” (Alexander of

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

unfortunately, diffi cult to know what he was referring to by this Persian philosophy.

The king of kings Šāpu-r certainly could have known that books attributed to Zoroaster, Zostrianus, Hystaspes, and other ancient Iranians (which Porphyry recognized to be contemporary forgeries) were in circulation. It seems possible, then, that Šāpu-r might have been one of the many who were fooled by the teachers that Plotinus and his disciples so disdained. Or could it be that these texts were actu-ally generated to fi ll a demand in the Persian court? Could the Persian emperor even have commissioned some such works? This speculation is justifi ed because of the remarkable coincidence that Porphyry was condemning newly composed pseudo-Persian books at precisely the same time that the later Arabic and Middle Persian traditions say that Greek texts of supposedly Iranian origin were “restored” into the Persian language under Šāpu-r by translation from Greek into Middle Persian.

An event mentioned in Šāpu-r’s trilingual inscription (known as ŠKZ, for its author and location: Šābuhr à la Ka< ba de Zoroastre),99 has signifi cance for the dis-cussion of Greek books moving into Persia. It describes how he defeated Gordian III, claimed half a million denars as tribute from Gordian’s immediate successor, Philip the Arab, and led many citizens of the Roman Empire into captivity, reset-tling them in the Persian Empire. The Greek part of the inscription states, “and we led in captivity people from the nation of the Romans from those of non-Iran and—in our nation of the Iranians in Persis, Parthia, Huzene (= Susiana/Khuzistan/Ahwāz), Assyria and in the other nations, according to province, where the posses-sions of ours and our father and grandfathers and ancestors were—there we settled them.”100 When a large number of Roman citizens, many of whom certainly spoke Greek, were integrated into the Persian Empire, they must have brought with them their ideas and books. It is hard to believe that Šāpu-r, an emperor who took care that his inscription be written also in Greek, would have been totally unaware of the

Lycopolis, trans. van der Horst and Mansfi eld 1974: 52, slightly modifi ed). aÃsø| (scil. Mani) dç ép≠

OÃakeqiamo’ lçm cecomåmai kåcesai, [lacuna here? see edition for variant conjunctions] rtrsqase’rai

Rap›q{ sÛ Påqrz, pqorjqo ra| då si so s{ �pokxkåmai. Though the two did not meet, the historical fact remains that Plotinus marched with an army against Šāpu-r I, Mani marched with Šāpu-rI, and the arch-dualist probably missed the founding fi gure of Neoplatonism by just twelve years. For discussion see Honigmann and Maricq 1953: 22–23, and the commentary to the French translation of the text by A. Villey 1985: 104–107. For Alexander of Lycopolis as a witness of Manichaeism, see DPA1.142–144 and G. Widengren, “Alexander of Lycopolis,” EIr, 1.830a–b. These events also help to illustrate how permeable the borders between the empires and their cultures must have been.

99. Gignoux 1972: 8.100. The translation is my own. Greek text from Huyse 1999: 1.43, §30; cf. Honigmann and Maricq

1953: 15.34–35 and Back 1978: 324–326). Ja≠ �mhq›pot| soÀ| �pø so’ ìhmot| < Qxla¨xm �pø sËm

\AmaqiamËm ém qpac© òc�calem ja≠ ém sÛ ôlesåq{ ìhmei sÛ \AqiamËm ém Peqr¨dei ja≠ ém Paqh¨y ja≠

ém OÃfgm© ja≠ ém s© \Arrtq¨y ja≠ ém so¥| èsåqoi| ìhmerim jas\ ép�qviom ≈pot ôlËm se ja≠ so’ pasqø|

ôlËm ja≠ p�ppxm ja≠ pqocæmxm ôlËm js¨rlasa üm, éje¥ aÃsoÀ| �pejh¨ralem. The Greek version of the text shows an almost perfect word-for-word correspondence with the surviving Parthian version, whereas the Middle Persian text is very badly damaged.

Background

Greek books claiming to be the authentic teachings of Zoroaster, the ancient teacher of his religion,101 and other legendary Iranians.

The spurious Greek books of Zoroaster and the ancient Persians referred to by Porphyry were mostly lost long ago and have been known only from a number of tantalizing citations in texts by other authors. However, the discovery of the Coptic codices at Nag< @ammādī in 1945 brought to light another important body of evi-dence relevant here. Among these famous Coptic texts copied in the fourth century, the contents of which were entirely translations from Greek, are books attributed to some of the very same pseudo-authors named by Porphyry: a work of Zostrianus, including the phrase “Words of Zoroaster” in the colophon,102 and a work of Allogenes, addressed to a Messos, evidently the same as Porphyry’s Allogenes and Messus (Mesos). Among the texts discovered there are also Coptic translations of the Greek Hermetica (and a Coptic excerpt from Plato’s Republic), perhaps showing that the audiences of the so-called Gnostic texts and the audience of the Hermetic texts overlapped, so to speak. Could it have been, then, that Šāpu-r commissioned the translation of the supposed books of ancient Persian sages from Greek into Middle Persian and received Hermetic texts along with them?

Far from Egypt another piece of relevant evidence was uncovered at Turfan, in the deserts of Chinese Turkestan. One of the Manichaean Middle Persian fragments found there seems to name Nicotheus (Nkty>wys), a fi gure mentioned by Porphyry in the passage cited above, along with Shem, Sem, Enosh and Enoch (Hwnwx) as prophets.103 This is not insignifi cant for the discussion of the transmission of Greek books of the third century into Middle Persian, because it shows that Nicotheus, one of the authors of the books associated by Porphyry with Zoroaster, was known in Sasanian Iran and was possibly known to Mani himself in the third century. It is also noteworthy in this connection that at some time between the two military cam-paigns mentioned above, Mani sent his apostle Patteg on a missionary journey to Egypt. While visiting Alexandria,104 Patteg must have learned something about the intellectual climate of Egypt. Could he have returned with information about this ancient prophet Nicotheus, or with a book of Hermes?

To the several speculations introduced above, one may add that the prolifi c Syrian poet Ephraem (d. 373), who spent his life on the Roman side of the Persian-Roman frontier in northern Mesopotamia, stated in his book against Mani that the Manichaeans regarded Hermes as one of the earlier teachers of Mani’s message, along with Plato and Jesus. Ephraem took pains to argue that Hermes taught nothing resembling the teachings of the Manichaeans and he paraphrased part of a Hermetic

101. $ Ec‡ Larda�rmg|, “I the Mazda-worshipping,” are the fi rst words of his Greek inscription just mentioned, declaring his religion (Huyse 1999: 1, 22; Honigmann and Maricq 1953: 11.1).

102. Barry, Funk, Poirier, and Turner 2000.103. Henning, 1934: 28 (Turfan Manichaean manuscript M299a recto, line 5). If it were spelled

*Nkty>ws, without the second y, the spelling would closely represent the Greek pronunciation.104. Gardner and Lieu 2004: 111.

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

book in order to do so.105 If Ephraem was correct, then by the fourth century at least some Manichaeans regarded Hermes as one of their own predecessors. Beyond being an important indication that Hermetic material of some kind was known in Aramaean Syria as early as the fourth century, this is another possible point of con-nection between Sasanian Iran and the Hermetica. It also shows that the syncretizing Manichaeans were the fi rst group known to treat Hermes as one in the line of the prophets. Hermes kept this position in Muslim doctrine, as chapters 4 and 5 will show. Yet no surviving Manichaean text appears to mention Hermes by name.106

Although our knowledge of the so-called Gnostics described by Porphyry comes in large part through the writings of Christian heresiographers who opposed them, there is one fi gure whose works survive and who seems to have been one of this group, or, at least, who read their books approvingly: the alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis, who fl ourished around 300 ce. In his best known surviving treatise, Onthe Letter Omega, not only did Zosimus refer to the Nicotheus mentioned by Porphyry, but he also discussed, together in one passage, Zoroaster and Hermes as ancient sages of authority whose views on fate he compared. He even mentioned “the holy books of Hermes,” with which he seems to have been acquainted.107 Zosimus cannot have been the only philosopher concerned with all these trends of thought that were later abandoned by subsequent generations. The third century, around Zosimus’ lifetime, is the period in which Hermes and Ostanes began to be associated in the extant Greek literature. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (fl . ca 248–258), in his treatise Quodidola dii non sint,108 cited the ancient Persian sage Ostanes and Hermes Trismegistus at the same time for their views on God: that God cannot be perceived and that God cannot be comprehended, respectively. Synesius of Cyrene (fourth cent.), who cor-responded with the martyr of paganism Hypatia (whose father, it is not irrelevant to mention, is said to have taught and interpreted the works of Hermes Trismegistus),109

considered Ammon, Zoroaster, and Hermes together as among the greatest philoso-phers.110 The references to Hermes and Zoroaster in such works illustrate for us one aspect of the intellectual milieu of the third century, when Hermetic texts were said by our Arabic source to have been transmitted to the Persian Empire. There are only circumstantial indicators of a possibility, not a proof.

105. The relevant passages are presented in the English translation of F. C. Burkitt in Scott 4.161–165,with notes discussing the possible source or sources of Ephraem.

106. It is not inconceivable that Manichaeans, preceding the later Muslims, identifi ed Hermes with Enoch, who was an important fi gure for Mani, and was mentioned in the list of prophets cited above from a Turfan manuscript fragment. On the identifi cation of Hermes with Enoch, see section 5.1, this volume.

107. Zosimus I.15.146.108. Quod idola dii non sint 6; Scott 4.5–6.109. Malalas XIII.343 (Dindorf): $ Ep≠ dç sû| barike¨a| aÃso’ (scil. Gratian) Håxm rofi›saso|

fiikærofio| éd¨darje ja≠ èqlñmetem s� �sqomolij� ja≠ s� < Eqlo’ so’ Sqirlec¨rsot rtccq�lasa ja≠

s� $ Oqfiåx|.110. Synesius, Dion 10. He also included Antony as a great philosopher. Cf. Fowden 1993a: 179.

Background

2.6 Ostanes and the Magi

A water-damaged Syriac manuscript in the library of Cambridge (Mm.6.29) con-tains a number of alchemical texts hinting at Middle Persian translations of Hermetica and other works from Roman Egypt.111 Among the texts in this manu-script are books surviving in Syriac, but lost in Greek, of the same Zosimus,112 as well as works of other early Greek alchemists including pseudo-Democritus.113 The Syriac text has never been published, but a French translation was made of the whole manuscript by Duval in volume 2 of Berthelot’s La Chimie au moyen âge, now more than a century old.114 In these, Zosimus demonstrates some concrete knowl-edge of Hermetic texts. However, the concern here is with another, more mysterious Syriac text bound together with the works of Zosimus, purporting to be the corre-spondence between a learned Egyptian and a learned Persian.115

In this correspondence, the Egyptian philosopher Pebechius116 informs the Persian magus Osron (>wsrwn)117 that he has found in Egypt the divine books of Ostanes, which had been hidden, written in Persian letters. Pebechius says that he is very eager to know what the books of Ostanes that he has found contain, so he begs Osron “to send him the Persian letters,” apparently meaning the equivalents of the letters in the Persian writing system. Pebechius also stresses the need for quick action so that he can understand these texts before he dies, for he is old and infi rm. Osron

111. Hunter 2002 begins with a valuable description and history of the manuscript.112. The authenticity of at least one of the Syriac translations of Zosimus is confi rmed by George

Syncellus, 4.4–14, who quoted a passage from one of these books in the Greek which is reproduced in the surviving Syriac. Cf. Berthelot 2.238.

113. Bolus of Mendes, an Egyptian alchemist of the Ptolemaic period, is usually considered responsible for the legends of Democritus and the alchemical writings falsely attributed to that name. This will be discussed further below.

114. Because the manuscript is badly damaged by moisture, and the ink is partly washed out on many pages, Duval’s translation is defective and also incomplete. The edition of the Mémoires Authentiques of Zosimus by M. Mertens (1995) takes note that a study of the Syriac Zosimus “pour-rait . . . se révéler riche d’enseignements” (p. lxxviii).

115. Berthelot 2.309–312. Ruska 1926: 42ff., noted the importance of this Syriac text but his discussion of its signifi cance was inconclusive.

116. Pebechius is a typical Egyptian name naturalized in Greek. Zosimus of Panopolis cites an authority named Pebechius in his works, perhaps supposed to be the same fi gure as the one appearing in the Syriac text examined here. Sezgin (GAS 4.51–54) dates Pebechius to the fourth century, following Lippmann (1918: 1.66; also 1918: 1.94–95 for an implicit identifi cation of the fi gures bearing the name Pebechius/Pibechius). However, this dating is open to question because Zosimus, who fl ourished at the turn of the fourth century, cites a Pebechius by name. It is also possible that there is more than one Pebechius involved in alchemical tradition. In any case, Lippmann’s (and Sezgin’s) dating of the Pebechius of this Syriac text to the fourth century cannot be accepted without further evidence.

117. This seems to be a rendering of the Middle Persian āsron, “priest.” The rounding of the initial vowel may perhaps be explained as characteristic of the well-known Western Aramaic pronunciation: “The ā is retained with the East-Syrians, but has become o with the West-Syrians,” Th. Nöldeke 1904: 31§44. (See, however, Nöldeke’s handwritten note provided in the augmented 2001 English edition, p. 342,suggesting that this sound change may not have taken place until the seventh century, though the evidence given is not conclusive.)

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

responds, delighted at the discovery, and sends him the letters. This seems to be enough for Pebechius to decipher the books of Ostanes that he discovered, for the next message summarizes them for Osron. He explains the subjects of Ostanes’ wis-dom with great awe. It is supposed to include the whole of all the sciences. He states that the disciples of Ostanes explained the writings on the seven holy tablets of Hermes that had been hidden by a king behind seven doors. The text in the manu-script is damaged here, but something can be discerned about an image of a dragon eating its tail and other symbolic fi gures, and then someone ordering them not to open the doors for anyone unworthy. Thus in this account, ancient wisdom of Hermes, recovered and taught by Persian Ostanes in Egypt, is restored to the Magi. The parallels with the story related by Ibn Nawbaxt, about the loss and recovery of ancient Persian science, discussed above, are clear.

Identifying this Ostanes may help in locating the provenance and date of these Syriac letters. Ostanes is a normal Persian name (with a Greek ending) attested commonly enough already in the Achaemenid period (559–330 bce). It occurs in cuneiform documents from Mesopotamia and Persia and in Egyptian Aramaic papyri.118 The early historian Xanthus of Lydia (fl . late fi fth century bce) mentioned Ostaneses (\Ors�mai, in the plural) in a succession of Persian magi who lived after the time of Xerxes (r. 486–465 bce).119 Xanthus was a near contemporary of these magi. But the legendary magus named Ostanes is known primarily from later Greek and Latin histories of science and works on natural properties, including the remains of ancient Greek alchemical literature.120 Pliny the Elder (d. 79 ce) is one of our best sources on this Ostanes because he went out of his way in his Historia Naturalis to refute the magicae vanitates, “useless magian arts” and the views of the magi who, he says, invented them.121 Pliny reported that Ostanes accompanied Xerxes on his great campaign against the Greeks and, furthermore, that he incited

118. In Greek sources the Iranian names $ Ors�mg|/ $ Orh�mg|, O–rsamo|, and AÃrs�mg| appear, representing Iranian *Avastāna-, to be distinguished from < Trs�mg|, < Irs�mg|, and Birh�mg|, represent-ing Iranian *Vištāna- and possibly also *Huštāna-. Both *Vištāna (wštn) and *Aw(a)stāna (>wstn) are attested, in 441 bce and 408 bce, respectively, in the Aramaic papyri of Elephantine in Upper Egypt, where there was a garrison under the Achaemenids (Cowley 1923: text 14.13, text 30.18 and 31.18). On these names and their Akkadian, Elamite, and Greek representations, see Tavernier 2007: 128, 211 and 354;Hinz 1975: 128 and 267; Kornfeld 1978: 98 and 106; Dandamaev 1992: 139–141; Eilers 1940: 34n2.

119. This information from his lost history of Lydia is cited by Diogenes Laertius 1.2. Ostanes is given along with other names, all in the plural, for the magi at this time. Was Ostanes the name of a class of magi as some have thought on the basis of Diogenes, or was it perhaps a hereditary name among magi? For a discussion of Xanthus of Lydia, see Kingsley 1995.

120. A special study of this Ostanes is found in Bidez and Cumont 1938: 1.165–212. Much of the following evidence is drawn from their useful collection of references. For a nearly exhaustive collection of testimonia, see idem, 2.267–356. Beck 1991: 553–564 presents a detailed discussion of Ostanes, concentrating on the pseudepigraphic nature of the works associated with his name. There is a chapter devoted to Ostanes in Lindsay 1970: 131–158, based largely on Bidez and Cumont’s work; this is quite rich in valuable information, but some of it is irrelevant and it is not organized for easy use by a historian. A letter from Pitys to Ostanes is edited in Papyri Graecae Magicae 1.IV.2008–2137.

121. Naturalis Historia xxx.1.

Background

many Greeks to learn his magical art, presumably through his works.122 In this case, the magical art must have been understood more in its original meaning of “the practice of the magi,” the magi being the priesthood of the Iranian religion called today Mazdaeanism, Magianism, or Zoroastrianism.123 Indeed Zoroaster, said Pliny, was without a doubt the founder of this false art,124 though Ostanes was guilty of introducing it to the Greeks. But he also referred to at least one more Ostanes who later worked in the same tradition.125 Although it is certain that a quantity of pseudo-Iranian literature existed in Greek, one must be cautious about rejecting it auto-matically as entirely spurious, because exceedingly little is known about the philosophy of the Magians before and even during the Sasanid dynasty.126 But we see at least that already in the fi rst century Roman intellectuals had heard of the works of ancient Iranian sages circulating in Greek.

Among the reputed students of this Ostanes’ “magic” was the infl uential atomist Democritus, who is said to have studied with Magi and Chaldaeans in the court of Xerxes himself, where Ostanes was.127 Democritus is cited by a certain Synesius (perhaps Synesius of Cyrene of the fourth century ce)128 in a letter, preserved in the oldest Greek alchemical corpora, addressed to a Dioscorus, priest of the Serapeion at Alexandria. In this letter Synesius tells also of Ostanes. He says that Democritus came to Egypt where “he was initiated into the mysteries by the great Ostanes in the temple of Memphis along with all the priests of Egypt.”129 According to the

122. Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia xxx.8: Primus, quod exstet, ut equidem invenio, commentatus est de ea [scil. arte magica] Osthanes Xerxen regem Persarum bello quod is Graecia intulit comitatus, ac velut semina artis portentosae sparsit obiter infecto quacumque ommeaverant mundo. Diligentiores paulo ante hunc ponunt Zoroastrem Proconnensium. Quod certum est, hic maxime Osthanes ad rabiem, non aviditatem modo scientiae eius Graecorum populos egit.

123. One should not assume that this is the same “Zoroastrianism” as later promoted by the Sasanians. It was not until Kirdēr’s inscriptions under Bahram II (r. 276–293) that one fi nds the earliest evidence for “an attempt to create a mass constituency for Magianism and an affi rmation of the Mazdaean identity by opposition to other religions in the late 3rd century,” M. Morony, “Sasanids,” EI2, 9.70b–83b.

124. Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, xxx.3: Sine dubia illic [scil. magica] orta in Perside a Zoroastre, ut inter auctores convenit. “Without doubt magic [or, the magian art] arose in Persia with Zoroaster, as it is agreed among the authorities” (trans. adapted from Pliny the Elder 1956: 279, trans. by W. H. S. Jones, Loeb Classical Library 393).

125. Nat. Hist., xxx.11: Non levem et Alexandri Magni temporibus auctoritatem addidit professioni secundus Osthanes comitatu eius exornatus, planeque, quod nemo dubitet, orbem terrarium peragravit. “In the time too of Alexander the Great, no slight addition was made to the infl uence of the profession by a second Osthanes, who, honoured by his attendance on Alexander, travelled certainly without the slightest doubt all over the world” (translation by W. H. S. Jones, Loeb Classical Library, 1963: 285).

126. Beck 1991 rejects all of the allegedly Iranian writings found in ancient Greek as spurious, but given our lack of knowledge about Iranian philosophy in this period, we have no way of judging their authenticity one way or the other.

127. The distinction between Magi, Persian priests, and Chaldaeans, Babylonian priests and astrologers, is not always clear in Greek and Latin literature. Cf. Kingsley 1995: 199–201.

128. PW 4A, 1366, argues that it is not the same Synesius.129. ƒ| ékh‡m ém AÆc ps{ éltrsacxcñhg paq� so’ lec�kot $ Ors�mot ém sÛ ØeqÛ sû| Lålfiex|

rÀm ja≠ p�ri so¥| Øeqe’rim AÆc psot, Berthelot and Ruelle 1888: 2.57 (reprinted in Bidez and Cumont 1938: 2.313.7–9).

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

abbreviated version of the same story related by George Syncellus, a Greek chroni-cler of the early ninth century ce, Ostanes was sent by the Persian kings to preside over (�qveim) the priests of Egypt.130 In their study of Ostanes, Bidez and Cumont regarded this as a fi ction, a “fabuleux récit,” because of the apparent discrepancy between the story of Ostanes accompanying Xerxes and the story of his Egyptian mystagoguery.131

A further complicating problem about Ostanes is the question of the authentic-ity of the works of his alleged disciple, Democritus. Some scholars, both ancient and modern, have argued that the alchemical works attributed to Democritus were not really written by him, but rather by an Egyptian, Bolus of Mendes.132 The most important testimony on this comes from the Res Rustica of Columella (fi rst cent. ce), referring in passing to the opinion of “the celebrated writer of Egyptian race, Bolus of Mendes, whose contrivances, which in Greek are called Hand-wrought Products and are published under the pseudonym of Democritus.”133 But it is also important to bear in mind that Pliny, who knew Columella’s work, considered the magical writings of Democritus to be true works of the famous philosopher and not pseudepigraphs: “That these [works of Democritus] were accepted by any human beings and transmitted by memory is the most extraordinary phenomenon in his-tory; so utterly are they lacking in credibility and decency that those who like the other works of Democritus deny that the magical books are his. But it is all to no purpose, for it is certain that Democritus especially instilled into men’s minds the sweets of magic.”134 Yet among modern scholars it is Columella’s report, helped by other important testimonies, that has been judged superior. In Greek tradition, the Byzantine encyclopedia Suda refers to “Bolus, Democritus” and other fragments mention “Bolus the Democritan.” To judge by citations, this Bolus lived around 200bce, and he apparently used works attributed to Zoroaster and Ostanes.135 This last fact, combined with the reports that say he took on the name Democritus, makes it very likely that it is the Egyptian Bolus who is responsible for transmitting or pos-sibly inventing the legend of Ostanes, teacher of Democritus. In the Democritan

130. Syncellus 297.23–25 (§471).131. Bidez and Cumont 1938: 1.169.132. On Bolus and his links with alchemical tradition and Democritus, see Kingsley 1994: 5–9, with

many further references. Kingsley’s main concern there is to be to prove, against other scholars, that Bolus, an Egyptian, was connected with early alchemy.

133. Columella, Res Rustica, VII.v.17. English translation by E. S. Forster and E. H. Heffner, Loeb Classical Library 273, modifi ed following Kingsley 1994: 8: Sed Aegyptiae gentis auctor memorabilis Bolus Mendesius, cuius commenta, quae appellantur Graece veiqæjlgsa, sub nomine Domocriti falso produn-tur . . . “Hand-wrought products,” veiqæjlgsa, is an alchemical term.

134. Pliny, Nat. Hist. 30.9–10. English translation by W. H. S. Jones, Loeb Classical Library, 1963,285. . . . quae recepta ab ullis hominum atque transisse per memoriam aeque ac nihil in vita mirandum est. In tantum fi des istis fasque omne deest, adeo ut qui in cetera in viro probant haec opera eius esse infi tientur. Sed frustra, hunc enim maxime adfi xisse animis eam dulcedinem constat.

135. The testimonies on Bolus and arguments for dating are very neatly summarized by Robert Halleux, 1981: 62–67; also Letrouit 1995: 16.

Background

Physika kai Mystika, usually attributed today to Bolus,136 Democritus relates in the fi rst person that Ostanes died “before our teaching was completed,”137 and that they therefore summoned Ostanes from Hades in order to obtain the rest of the master’s teachings.138 Subsequently Ostanes’ hidden books, the books of his ancestors, were revealed inside a pillar (rsñkg) in the temple.139 Ostanes brought the books out of the pillar himself for the group to examine. Again, Bolus is apparently either the author of this elaborate legend or the one who transmitted it. Assuming that the date of Bolus ca 200 bce is correct, the idea of a Persian magus recovering his ances-tral science from Egypt becomes quite old.

Further testimony for the argument that Bolus transmitted or created the legend of Ostanes comes from the Oration against the Hellenes by Tatian, a Mesopotamian of the second century (and therefore born under Parthian rule), who received a good Hellenic education and lived in the Roman Empire, where he converted to Christianity, eventually returning to his Assyrian homeland, where he died. In his tirade against the pagan Hellenes he says “Concerning the Sympathies and Antipathies according to Democritus,” that “the one vaunting the Mage Ostanes will be given over as food for the eternal fi re on the day of consummation.”140 An Alphabetical Treatise on Sympathies and Antipathies of Stones is attributed to Bolus of Mendes by the Byzantine encyclopedia Suda.141 Probably this is the work referred to by Tatian.

It is not impossible that a fi gure like Ostanes could have been sent to Egypt and have participated in the Egyptian priesthood under the Achaemenids.142 It should

136. On this attribution see Bidez and Cumont 1938: 1.198–207; Festugière 1.224–238; Beck 1991:562–563.

137. lgdåpx ôlËm sekeixhåmsxm, Berthelot and Ruelle 1888: 2.42; also Bidez and Cumont 1938:2.317.

138. The whole account is given with commentary and references by Bidez and Cumont 1938:2.317–320. An English translation with some comments appears in Lindsay 1970: 102–103.

139. < O dç $ Ors�mg| ìfiarjem ém aÃs© s�| pasqÛa| sehgratq¨rhai b¨bkot|, Bidez and Cumont 1938: 2.318.6–7. The translation of Lindsay 1970: 103 is mistaken: “However [the son] Ostanes told us that it was in this column his father’s books had been placed” (bracketed expression added by Lindsay). The interpretation involving a second Ostanes (Ostanes the Younger, it would seem), who had put his books in the pillar for safe keeping, is not necessary. Rather it appears that the same (unique) Ostanes, already summoned from the dead, said that the books of his ancestors (not of his father) were stored in that pillar.

140. Tatian, Oratio contra Graecos 17. Peq≠ c�q sËm jas� søm Dglæjqisom ntlpaheiËm se ja≠

�msipaheiËm . . . ¡ søm l�com $ Ors�mgm jatv›lemo| ém ôlåqy rtmseke¨a| ptqø| aÆxm¨ot boqÜ paqa-

dohñresai. The whole passage is given with notes by Bidez and Cumont 1938: 2.293–296.141. The Suda lists two different fi gures named Bolus, one “Bolus Democritus” and the other “Bolus

of Mendes, Pythagorean,” but these have been regarded as the same fi gure since the argument of M. Wellmann, 1921: 16.

142. Moreover, the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the Achaemenids and their offi cials (Posener 1936)demonstrate that Persian offi cials resided in Egypt and took Egyptian names and titles, and that the Achaemenid kings supported the building of temples to Egyptian gods and made offerings to them. The ¢wārizmian (!) whose name appears in the Aramaic papyri from Elephantine in Egypt of this period (Cowley 1923: 15) was interpreted by A. D. H. Bivar as possibly “a pensioned survivor from Xerxes’ Grand Army” (CHI 3.1.181).

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

be remembered that Xerxes, like his father Darius and his grandfather Cambyses, ruled Egypt, where the Persian emperors styled themselves as pharaohs.143 Xerxes, who burned Greek temples (at the urging of the magi, it was said),144 also built temples in Egypt. That learned men crossed the cultural borders between Persia and Egypt in this period is proven by the example of Udjahor-resnet, an Egyptian priest and physician who served under Cambyses and Darius (Xerxes’ grandfather and father), and whose autobiographical inscription in hieroglyphic Egyptian outlines his career of service, which included his accompanying the Persian armies to the emperor’s palace at Susa, in distant Elam, later ¢u-zistān, at the borders of Persia proper.145 Although there is no reason to doubt the historical existence of such an Ostanes just because he was Persian and not Greek, it is a different question whether the books attributed to him are really his. Fortunately, the unknowable answer is practically irrelevant for the investigation here. The consensus of scholars is that the work describing Ostanes’ alchemical activities in Egypt was at least transmitted by Bolus of Mendes. It is possible that Bolus was citing earlier material attributed to Ostanes, just as it is also possible that he invented the story entirely.146

In brief, the story of the Persian Ostanes in Egypt, and therefore an account about Persian science in Egypt, was in circulation, probably mediated by Bolus, long before the third century ce. By the time of Šāpu-r I, this legend was well known to physical theorists, alchemists, and dabblers in the properties of natural substances. The correspondence between Pebechius the Egyptian and Osron the Magus surviv-ing in Syriac, summarized above, surely must be related to this story, for it describes the discovery of the Persian Ostanes’ revelation in Egypt of the wisdom of Hermes. Thus the legend of Ostanes, at least in one of its forms, which survives in Syriac (and in Arabic, as will be shown), described him as an interpreter of the inscriptions of the Egyptian Hermes.

That the Syriac text under examination is bound together with books of Zosimus and other similar works, all dealing with the same topic, alchemy, suggests perhaps that they may have been transmitted together from the time of Zosimus. The name Pebechius is found elsewhere in the same manuscript: in his On the Letter Theta (sur-viving only in this Syriac manuscript), Zosimus cites Pebechius as an authority.147 It is therefore possible that the correspondence between Pebechius and Osron originated either in the same period, ca 300, or earlier. These texts may be documents illustrating the historical context of Šāpu-r’s alleged concern for translating Greek books. The Syriac letters clearly connect Hermes to Persian science by making Ostanes, a legendary

143. See the collection of hieroglyphic Egyptian inscriptions (with translations and commentary) of the Achaemenid period in G. Posener 1936. For an overview of early Achaemenid rule in Egypt, and the status of language in the Persian Empire, see Briant 2002: 172–184 and 507–510.

144. Cicero, De legibus II.26.145. Anthony Spalinger, “Udjahorresnet,” in Lexicon der Ägyptologie, 6.822–824.146. For discussion of this question and scholars’ views on it, see Beck 1991: 560–561.147. Berthelot 2.245.

Background

ancient Persian sage who lived before Alexander, the interpreter of the inscriptions on the pillars of Egypt and of Hermes’ science. Notwithstanding the uncertainties, the fi ctional connection between a Persian magus and an Egyptian scholar in their discus-sions of Hermes and Ostanes, ancient sages of their respective countries, is striking. Moreover, the survival of these texts in Syriac brings them into proximity with the Sasanian Empire and indicates that they were certainly transmitted in the domain of the subsequent Arab Empire. There is also still more evidence to be considered: texts in Arabic associated with the name Ostanes and also with Hermes.

2.7 Ostanes and Hermes in Arabic

Two sections of an Arabic manuscript containing works ascribed to Ostanes were published by Berthelot in La Chimie au moyen âge, vol. 3.148 Both are written in a very awkward style of Arabic that shows almost without doubt that they were trans-lations. At least, one may judge that they could not have been originally composed by native speakers of Arabic. In the fi rst of the two books, Ostanes has a conversa-tion with Aristotle about the properties of special kinds of matter; clearly we are dealing with a pseudepigraphon. In the second work, part of which was published by Berthelot and which is more important for the present discussion, Ostanes describes a bizarre dream that he had after being wearied with concern for “this work” (i.e., alchemy). In the dream, evidently of symbolic character, a visitor comes, tells him to get up from his bed, and shows him seven doors. Behind these doors, the visitor explains, are the treasure-houses of science (xazā>in al-<ilm), to be under-stood as libraries. But Ostanes needs the key, and these must be obtained from a ferocious self-devouring beast with the wings of a vulture, the head of an elephant, and the tail of a dragon who has just appeared. Encouraged by the visitor, he tells the beast, in the name of God, to hand over the key. Then he takes the key and fi nds behind the doors an inscription written in seven languages; the fi rst of these lan-guages is Egyptian, the second Persian, the third Indian (meaning Sanskrit), and the rest too damaged to read. He relates all of it that was legible. The Egyptian text gives a metaphor for the body, spirit, and soul, which are likened to the lamp, the oil, and the wick respectively. It states that the fi rst elements (tabā>i<) are fi re and water, whose mixing produced bodies, plants, and stones.149 Then comes the Persian text of the dream-inscription, which is of importance for this investigation:

Then there was after it Persian writing in which was much learning and knowledge, and this is what I say to you now; it is the writing that was clear to me and the knowledge that I acquired. It said:

148. Berthelot 3.79–88 (Arabic text).149. On the uses of the term tabī<a in alchemy, see S. Nomanul Haq and D. Pingree, “Tabī<a 3.

Tabā>i< in the alchemical tradition,” EI2, 10.27a–28a.

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

“As for Egypt, it has excellence over the towns and the countries. That is because God the Exalted has given its people wisdom and knowledge in all things. And as for Persia, the people of Egypt and the people of all the horizons need it [i.e., Persia]. Nothing of their works is sound except by that which has come from Persia. Do you not see that each of the philoso-phers whose concern was in this knowledge had sent to the people of Persia and took them as brothers, and asked them to send to him that which comes from their land and is not found in other lands? Have you not heard a certain philosopher having written to the magi, people of Persia, that ‘I have come upon one of the books of the fi rst sages in the pen of Persia that I cannot read. Send to me one of their sages to read to me my book which I have found. For you are doing me a favor, if you do that, and I will thank you forever, as long as I remain. So send quickly to me the one whom I have asked from you before my life ceases and I become a corpse needing no knowledge.’ And the sages of the people of Persia wrote to him that, ‘When your letter reached us, we were very happy with what you wrote to us. We have sent quickly to you that sage that you asked for to read to you your book and explain to you what is hidden from you of it, for we considered that it is a necessary duty for us to you. Consider, when you have fi nished your book, as it should be (ka-llaDī yanbaġī), and send quickly to us a copy of that book, because our ancient fathers were the ones who established that book. Therefore let us have a share in it with you, for it also thus should be. Peace.’ ”

This is everything that I read of the Persian writing that was on the tablet.150

In the Indian portion of the inscription, the Indians claim that their country is “the most potent of all countries” (wa-ardunā ašaddu l-aradīna kullihā quwwatan)because of its proximity to the sun. However, “if it were not for what we need from Persia, we would complete all our work with that which comes out of our land and our sea.”151 Then the Indians relate how they sent the urine of a male, white elephant from their land to a man who requested it, and how the man was very impressed with its healing properties. Thus ends the legible portion of the tablet, according to the narrative. Ostanes barely escapes the treasure-houses of science before the time at which the doors are locked, and meets an old man, who exhorts him to fi nd knowledge in the strange and terrifying beast, who now also appears again. The text ends with the old man giving Ostanes mysterious instructions. Ostanes reports that

150. Berthelot 3.85.10–86.8 (Arabic text). I have tried to retain the awkward style of the Arabic in this English rendering. The dream is described in French by Blochet 1911–1912: 272–275 (repeated in Bidet and Cumont 1938: 2.347–352), and briefl y in German by Ullmann 1972: 185.

151. Berthelot 3.84.13–15. law-lā mā nahtāgu ilayhi min ardi fārisa la-akmalnā l-<amala kullahu-

bi-llaDī yaxrugu min ardinā wa-bahrinā.

Background

he followed them to the completion of “the entire work” “as Hermes had described”!152 Thus it seems that Ostanes’ dream-guide was none other than Hermes.

This dream of Ostanes is important here because of the close resemblance of the account on the Persian inscription within the dream to the Syriac correspondence between Pebechius and Osron, as well as to the later Arabic accounts of Middle Persian translations of Greek and Egyptian books reviewed above. The similarity with the Syriac text, including the specifi c details of seven doors, seven tablets of writing, and a self-devouring monster, is too great to be accidental. The dream related by Ostanes in the Arabic text, describing the exchange of ancient science between Egypt and Persia, and mentioning the name Hermes, also represents the same ideology described by Ibn Nawbaxt and the Denkard, to the effect that ancient Egyptian science was originally Persian. These points, combined with the absence of any reference in the dream-inscription to the Arabic language, as well as the comments indicating the dependence of Egypt and India on Persia, lead me to surmise that they originated in pre-Islamic times and in the Sasanian Empire. Moreover, listing the views of representatives of different nations is a common and well-attested device in Middle Persian literature that went on to fl ourish in Arabic translation and adaptation.153 The idea of the inscriptions representing different nations also points to a Sasanian background of the story found in the correspon-dence between Pebechius and Osron surviving in Syriac. Was this Arabic book of Ostanes translated from Middle Persian? Even if so, the text or the idea behind it must still also somehow have its ultimate roots in Greek, for the very form of the name Ostanes in Arabic reveals by its characteristic Greek ending (-s) the Greek derivation of his legend. Given the legend of Ostanes that circulated in Greek, through the reports on Democritus outlined just above, one could expect no other ultimate source.

It still remains to be determined where the Arabic legend of Ostanes and his teacher Hermes originated. The same manuscript contains another work of Ostanes called “The Twelve Chapters of Ostanes the Wise on Knowing the Venerable Stone [i.e., the Philosopher’s Stone].” The text begins with an explicit description of its alleged transmission into Arabic, but unfortunately it is very diffi cult to believe. It claims that there was a great scholar bearing the Muslim Arabic name Abu- ¢ālidŠaddād ibn al-Yazīd, who lived in Ujjain (in western India) and had mastered alchemy and other occult arts, studying them in more than seventy languages; he had translated the art of Ostanes into Greek from “his [Ostanes’?] language” and taught it to someone named <Ubaydallāh ibn Ahmad the Indian (al-Hindī); the lat-ter allegedly translated the work from Greek into Persian; he then taught it to Ga<far

152. Berthelot 3.88.3–4. fa-fa<altu llaDī amaranī bihī fa-adraktu l-<amala kullahu- tāmman ka-llaDīwas.afahu- Hirmis.

153. Shaked 1984: 41–49, van Bladel 2004: 159–160.

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

ibn <Umar the Persian (al-Fārisī), who translated it from Persian into “the idiom of most remote of ¢urāsān (Eastern Iran)”; then this Ga<far taught it to Abu- Bakr Yahyā ibn ¢ālid of ¢urāsān, who translated it into Arabic.154

The city Ujjain, where the fi rst teacher in the account worked, was the location of the meridian at 0° longitude in Indian science. In Arabic geography, a recipient of this tradition, Ujjain, under the name Uzzayn (usually misread as Arīn), became known consequently as the center of the world. In other words, the book is sup-posed to have been transmitted by a brilliant scholar who lived in the center of the world. Manfred Ullmann rightly considers the tale “phantastisch und fi ktiv.”155 But even if the ultimate origin of this work of Ostanes, in India, is fi ctional, the text may be evidence for a Middle Persian Ostanes. It is interesting that the text of Ostanes’ dream inscription, reviewed above, with its claim of the superiority and originality of Iranian science, was bound together with another text allegedly translated through two Iranian languages.

To sum up, the legend of the Persian Ostanes as revealer of Hermetic wisdom in Egypt circulated together with the works of a third-century alchemist, Zosimus, who cited both Hermes and Ostanes in his own works. There is direct evidence for the existence of the legend in Syriac, and a strong suggestion for its circulation in Middle Persian, transmitted into Arabic.156 Again the problem is to provide a date for the texts, but no solution is evident. What is clear is that Ostanes, the Persian sage of Egypt, and his association with Hermes were known by the third century, and that the teaching of Ostanes seems to have been transmitted into the Sasanian Empire, but at an unknown time. It is possible, though not provable, that the repu-tation of Hermes as an ancient sage, and even works of Hermes, had reached the Sasanian court because of his connection with “their own” Persian Ostanes, who was reputed to have transmitted the teachings of Hermes.

154. The introduction is cited by Berthelot 3.13–14 (in a totally corrupt form) and Blochet 1911–1912:271n1, on the basis of Paris MS 2605. The passage is also summarized by Sezgin, GAS 4.52–53. I have examined the work under the name of Ostanes’ Kitāb al-Gāmi< in the UCLA Biomedical Library, MS Ar. 29, 79b and British Library Add. 22,756, 84b–85a: qāla Abu- Bakr Yahyā Ibn ¢ālid al-Ġassānī Tummal-¢urāsānī aqra>anī Ga<far ibn <Umar al-Fārisī qāla aqra>anī <Ubaydullāh ibn Ahmad al-Hindī qālašāhadtu maglisa Abī ¢ālid Šaddād Ibn al-Yazīd bi-madīnat Arīn . . . (The high qualifi cations of Abu-

¢ālid in all the sciences are described.) . . . wa-kāna qad naqalahu- (scil. the book of Ostanes) minlisānihī ilā l-lisān al-yu-nānī fa-naqaltuhu- anā min al-Yu-nānī ilā l-Fārisī Tumma naqalahu- Ibn <Umar min al-lisān al-Fārisī ilā l-lisān al-<Agamī <alā lafz aqsā ¢urāsān qāla Abu- Bakr fa-naqaltuhu- anā min lafz ¢ urāsān ilā lafz al-<arabī <alā luġati l-<Irāq.

155. Ullmann 1972, 184. One still wonders, though, why an author wanting to give his book a fi ctive ancient authority did not make the more likely claim that the text was translated directly from Greek. Moreover, we apparently have a tantalizing reference to an Eastern Iranian language in the phrase “the pronunciation of furthest ¢urāsān.” Bactrian and Sogdian, languages that had literatures of their own even under early Arab rule, are likely candidates.

156. Ostanes was also known to early alchemists writing original works in Arabic. For example, he is mentioned by Gābir ibn @ayyān in his Kitāb Sirr al-asrār (Kraus 1943: 1.136, no. 1072).

Background

2.8 The Hymn of the Pearl and the Iranian History of Science

The Hymn of the Pearl, an important piece of so-called Gnostic literature, survives in Greek and Syriac as a part of the apocryphal Acts of Thomas. Related in the fi rst person, the hymn tells the tale of the journey of a young prince, son of the King of Kings from the East, into Egypt, sent on a mission by the great king to recover a pearl. Once there, the prince is seduced by the pleasures of Egypt and forgets his mission. Only when revived by a messenger from his father does he awaken and return with the pearl (won from a dragon) to the splendor of his home in the East.

The tale served as a metaphor for the descent of the spirit into the material world, its torpor of ignorance there, its awakening by the gospel, and its ascent to reunion with God. After the foregoing discussion, however, one may suspect that the hymn also alludes to the idea of the recovery of lost Persian knowledge from Egypt. For if the hymn was composed in a culture aware of the “Iranocentric” history of science, its metaphorical signifi cance would be placed in the more mundane context of this history. The pearl stands for knowledge recovered in Egypt and brought back to the east. The question of dating the hymn therefore becomes important, but again there is no precise answer.157 It has been suggested that it was composed during the last decades of the Parthian kingdom (ca 200–224 ce), because of a reference to kings of Parthia and Parthian words in the hymn. One scholar considers that the Parthian background may be part of the “mythological setting” of the tale.158 Because the Parthian aristocracy did not disappear during Sasanian times, the work could also have been composed later.159 In any case, the book of the Acts of Thomas, in which the hymn occurs, is generally thought by modern scholars to have been composed—either in Greek or in Syriac, the two languages in which it survives—in the vicinity of Edessa in Syria in the fi rst half of the third century. This would place the hymn in the very beginning of the reign of Ardašīr, Šāpu-r’s father. Although the precise date is unknown, this hymn can be interpreted to suggest that a legend of Persian knowl-edge lost in Egypt was known popularly in the early third century.

2.9 The Role of Alexander in the Iranian History of Science

In the accounts dating from the sixth century onward, reviewed above, Alexander is supposed to have plundered the ancient wisdom of Persia and to have sent it back to his home, the Roman Empire. Why is Alexander, who, in reality, long antedated

157. Klijn 2003: 182–195 provides a recent bibliography on this hymn, on which many scholars have commented.

158. Klijn 2003: 193.159. Pourshariati 2008 discusses at length the Parthians in Sasanian times.

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

the Roman Empire, continually associated with the Rome in the legends examined here? There is, of course, the simple fact that the Roman Empire was heir of Greek and Macedonian rule in the Eastern Mediterranean, and that for those east of the Roman Empire, the “Roman” language was Greek. Similarly, as is well known, later Byzantine Greeks are always known as Ru-m in Arabic sources. However, the associa-tion between Alexander and the Roman emperors was part of Roman imperial pro-paganda precisely at the beginning of the third century, the very period during which the Sasanids came to power and are supposed to have initiated a policy of restoring science from Greek books stolen by Alexander.

The Roman emperor Antoninus Caracalla (r. 211–217) is particularly famous for having been extremely fond of Alexander the Great (fiikakenamdqæsaso|)160 and for having self-consciously imitated the legend of Alexander. His vita in the Historia Augusta tells us that he thought himself worthy to be compared with Alexander the Great.161 Dio’s history describes Caracalla as obsessed with Alexander, setting up numerous images of him, organizing a phalanx composed only of Macedonians and calling it “Alexander’s Phalanx,” dubbing Alexander “the Eastern Augustus,” and even claiming himself to be Alexander returned to life.162 Herodian relates the story of Caracalla’s special visit to Alexander’s tomb in Egyptian Alexandria and his ven-eration of the site there, which was apparently deemed ridiculous by the Alexandrians. Herodian identifi es the mockery of Caracalla as one of the main reasons for his rage and slaughter of numerous inhabitants of that city during that visit.163 Alexander’s imitator must have made himself infamous in Iran by spending part of his reign in Mesopotamia, apparently making forays into the Parthian Empire and, no doubt, trying to follow the eastern footsteps of the Macedonian conqueror. He was fi nally assassinated.164

After the brief reigns of Macrinus (r. 217–218) and Elagabalus (r. 218–222), Alexander Severus reigned (r. 222–235), having adopted the names both of Alexander the Macedonian and of Severus, Caracalla’s father. A legend developed that he was so named because he was born in a temple dedicated to Alexander the Great.165 It is said that the Senate even offered him the title “the Great,” but he refused it.166 When Ardašīr overthrew Artabanus the Parthian and established Sasanian rule, it was this Alexander against whom he made war. The fi rst Roman enemy of the Sasanid emperors was thus an Alexander seen as prefi gured by Alexander the Macedonian. This would have been a convenient coincidence for Ardašīr, if he had wanted to

160. Cassius Dio LXXXVIII.9.1.161. Historia Augusta, Vita Antonini Caracalli, II: . . . se Alexandro Magno Macedoni aequandum

putabat. . . . Alexandrum Magnum eiusque gesta in ore semper habuit.162. Dio, LXXVIII.7.163. Herodian IV.9.164. Idem, IV.10–13.165. Historia Augusta, Vita Severi Alexandri V.1.166. Idem, V.6–12.

Background

present himself as the future restorer of the ancient Persian Empire overthrown by Alexander. In effect, he could have claimed to be taking revenge against Alexander the Macedonian by attacking the Roman Alexander. The two main Roman histori-ans for these events, Herodian and Cassius Dio, writing in Greek, portray Ardašīr as threatening just this.167 Dio says that Ardašīr threatened to take Syria and Mesopotamia on the claim that “they belonged to him from his forefathers, since as the Persians of old held (the lands) up to the Hellenic Sea.”168 Herodian goes further in saying that Ardašīr intended to restore the empire of Cyrus and Darius.169

There has been an ongoing debate in modern scholarship over how much Ardašīrreally knew about the ancient Achaemenid dynasty of Persia: whether to trust Dio and Herodian at all on this matter, and how much.170 What is at stake in the question is a narrative about cultural continuity of the history of ancient Iran. Did the Sasanids really see themselves as restorers of the Achaemenian Empire? The answers to the problem have mostly been based on the interpretation of these two Greek sources. There is, in fact, no evidence to suggest that the Sasanids had much accu-rate information about the Achaemenian Empire. David Frendo argues forcefully that Herodian and Dio had “recourse to a highly literary and allusive form of his-torical geography” in describing Ardašīr’s claims. Specifi cally, he argues that they were using Herodotus’ descriptions of the extent of the Achaemenid Persian Empire to inform their understanding of contemporary events, but that this did not accu-rately represent Ardašīr’s policy.171 Huyse has made a similar case.172 An awareness of ancestral Persian land possessions of some kind is evident in the trilingual royal inscription (ŠKZ) of Ardašīr’s son Šāpu-r,173 mentioned above, but were the lands mentioned there merely ancestral family estates, or were they actually supposed to

167. Herodian VI.2.2, VI.4.5; Dio LXXX.3–4 (Dio was a military commander under Alexander Severus and thus a knowledgeable contemporary of these events).

168. Dio LXXX.4 „| ja≠ pqorñjoms� oØ éj pqocæmxm ≈ra posç oØ p�kai Påqrai låvqi sû|

< Ekkgmijû| hakk�rg| ìrvom; he says nothing about the Achaemenids as such.169. Herodian VI.2.2.170. Notable and more recent publications treating this problem include Yar-Shater 1971,

Wiesehöfer 1986, Shayegan 2000, Rubin 2002, Shahid 2004, Frendo 2006, Dignas and Winter 2007:53–62. One may pursue these publications (particularly Shayegan 2000: 101–102n40) for more bibliography.

171. Frendo 2006 doubts even Dio’s account of Ardašīr’s alleged irredentism. Like Yar-Shater 1971(who does not appear to doubt Dio’s account), Frendo sees Ardašīr’s policy as a continuation of Arsacid policy. Shayegan 2000: 101 sees Dio’s interpretation as a Roman literary topos.

172. Huyse 2002, which also brings up several of the following points about a vague reminiscence of ancient Persia.

173. In Dio’s representation (80.4), Ardašīr claims the Roman territories “on the grounds that they belong to him from his forefathers” („| ja≠ pqorñjoms� oØ éj pqocæmxm). This superfi cially resembles that of the inscription of Ardašīr’s son, Šāpu-r, referring to the territories that were possessions of his forefathers (see note 100: ≈pot ôlËm se ja≠ so’ pasqø| ôlËm ja≠ p�ppxm ja≠ pqocæmxm ôlËm

js¨rlasa üm).

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

be the Achaemenid provinces?174 One cannot assume that the alleged irredentism of Ardašīr referred to a specifi cally Achaemenian past, refl ecting detailed historical knowledge of the Achaemenian Empire. It is likely, however, that Ardašīr knew of a vaguer, but nevertheless real, traditional lore about a former Persian glory which he imagined that he could restore. Ardašīr need not have had any of the information supplied by Herodotus to know that a Persian dynasty, one whose very name was perhaps forgotten in Iran, had controlled a great empire long ago.175 Similarly, the Sasanids are not likely to have had specifi cally Achaemenid territories in mind. Yet the carved reliefs depicting the investiture of Ardašīr are at Naqš-i Ragab, just a few kilometers from the ruined Achaemenid palace at Persepolis, and at Naqš-i Rustam, on the very cliff face into which the tombs of the Achaemenids were carved, sites at which the subsequent Sasanian emperors also added their own reliefs and inscrip-tions. This indicates that Achaemenian monuments were regarded as a physical memorial of past Persian glories, even if an accurate historical record about them had been utterly lost. Moreover, it is diffi cult to assume that Ardašīr and his contem-poraries were completely ignorant of the meaning behind the vaunted claims of and about Caracalla and Alexander Severus, the new Alexanders. Surely, if the imitatio Alexandri was to have a role in Roman relations with their eastern neighbors, some-one would have explained to the Parthian and Persian courts just what a new Alexander meant. This would not require the listener to have any accurate concep-tion of the Achaemenian history beyond a remembered Persian glory of a bygone age ended by Alexander. Just such a glorious age, before Alexander, is described in the Iranian traditional stories of the Kayānian kings, most famously recorded in Firdawsī’s Šāhnāma. Numerous Arabic works (many of which are listed in section 2.3) tell on the basis of translations from Middle Persian that Ardašīr’s goal was precisely to restore the unifi ed empire of his ancient ancestor Dārā. As Dignas and Winter point out, the agreement between the contemporary Greek sources and the Arabic and Middle Persian tradition, attested much later, speaks for itself.176

Unfortunately, due to the paucity, subjectivity, and ambiguity of the sources, speculative debates predominate in the discussion of nearly every aspect of the cul-ture of the early Sasanian Empire. For the same reasons, it has been diffi cult in this chapter to say with certainty whether works of Hermes, or a legend about Hermes, were known in the Sasanian Empire as early as the third century. If, however, the

174. For arguments that the Sasanians were indeed trying to restore the Achaemenids’ empire, see Fowden 1993b: 26–30, Shahid 2004: 240–241, and Dignas and Winter 2007: 56–62. Against, see most recently Huyse 2002 and Frendo 2006.

175. Similarly Wiesehöfer: “The Sasanian claims were probably not so precisely formulated and historically based as Herodian, in particular, suggests; but these reports show that the objective of Sasanian foreign policy was well understood by their Roman adversaries . . . ” in “Ardašīr I (?–242 ce), the founder of the Sasanian empire,” EIr 2.371–376. Yar-Shater 1971 also thinks that the Persian claim was not about a specifi cally Achaemenid past; he doubts Herodian (p. 525), but not, apparently, Dio.

176. Dignas and Winter 2007: 55–56.

Background

early Sasanian emperors did claim that lands were wrongly taken from the ancient Persians by Alexander the Great, then the Persian propaganda was particularly appropriate to match and oppose the Roman propaganda, and indeed was probably specifi cally designed to counter it, using the Roman ideology as a means for their own justifi cation. Therefore, if it is accepted that the “Iranocentric” history of sci-ence, as found in the later Middle Persian and Arabic sources reviewed above, had its genesis in this early period, the third century, one may suppose that the appro-priation of Greek science by the Persian rulers can be understood not just as a mea-sure taken to promote learning, but also as a political device. According to this ideology, the Persians were not merely restoring the ancient Persian Empire, but they were also taking revenge against Alexander, now self-consciously represented by the Roman emperors themselves, who revered Alexander as their forebear and their model, but who, for the Persians, was the thief of their ancient sciences and wisdom. In any case, the passage from the Denkard, discussed above, shows that this was a historical narrative present in the Persian court in the time of ¢usro I (r. 531–578), by which time there can be no doubt that translations had been made from Greek into Middle Persian. If, however, the ideology existed already in the third century, then the legend about the Iranian restoration of texts stolen by Alexander supports the Greek sources stating that Ardašīr made truly irredentist claims against the Romans. One must avoid a circular argument: the two sets of evidence cannot both be evidence for the other. Nevertheless, there is a striking coincidence between the third-century Greek sources, describing the Sasanid aim to restore pre- Alexandrian Persian territory, and the sixth-century and later Middle Persian and Arabic sources, describing the Sasanid aim, in the third century, to restore pre- Alexandrian Persian science.

2.10 Conclusions

First and foremost, the preceding discussion shows that there was defi nitely a Middle Persian Hermetic literature: astrological texts in Middle Persian attributed to Hermes. The doubtful and more complicated matter, based on the scarce informa-tion available, is when Greek Hermetica were translated into Middle Persian. The evidence suggests that, already in Šāpu-r’s time, Iranian sciences were alleged to have been recovered in Egypt and that forged works attributed to Zoroaster, Ostanes, and other Iranian sages had entered general circulation and attracted the attention of philosophers. Hermes is connected with the accounts linking Egypt and Iran through the legend of Ostanes, a sage of Achaemenian times. This legend fi rst appears, as far as one can now tell, in the works of pseudo-Democritus, usually identifi ed today with a poorly known Egyptian fi gure, Bolos of Mendes (third cen-tury bce). There is also evidence for an exchange of ideas between the Greek lan-guage and its Eastern neighbors in the fi rst century of Sasanid rule in the activity of Manichaeans and, for example, in the interests of Plotinus in “Eastern philosophy.”

Hermes in Sasanian Iran

The references in Greek sources to a supposedly Iranian wisdom, hidden in Egypt, may give support to the numerous Middle Persian and Arabic reports dating from the sixth century onward, claiming that Persian sciences—also connected with the name Hermes by Ibn Nawbaxt, one of the most detailed sources—were “restored” to the land of their origin by translation under Šāpu-r I. Unless these correspon-dences are fortuitous, one must consider them to refer, however distantly, to the same events: the Sasanian Persian translation of Greek works in the third century ce. Given the foregoing, it is possible—though by no means absolutely proven—that some of the works attributed to Hermes were among those translated into Middle Persian in this early phase. The preceding discussion also illustrates some of the historical circumstances in which this transmission might have taken place. As stated at the outset, this has been an investigation of the evidence external to the Arabic Hermetica. The study of the Arabic Hermetica themselves might bring more evidence.

These fi ndings show that one must take care not automatically to dismiss as late forgeries, without further investigation, all the Arabic literature that makes claims to have been written not only by Hermes, but also Ostanes, Zoroaster, and the other more mysterious fi gures of Greek and Iranian background.177 Rather, it seems that there is a potentially substantial number of works transmitted into Arabic from Greek through Middle Persian, and that these may offer an important and some-what unexpected new piece of the history of Graeco-Arabic translations. Each text will have to be analyzed on its own in order to try to determine the extent of this. Reliable criteria will need to be sought by which an Arabic work can be shown to have been translated from Middle Persian.178

The special importance of the Middle Persian mediation of Greek texts into Arabic, of which some of the Arabic Hermetic literature seems to be but a part, is that it originated in Greek in a relatively early period, in a context totally different from the transmission into Arabic of the texts of the Greek philosophers and physi-cians, which was accomplished mainly by Aramaean and Arab Christians centuries later. While much in the dating of the Sasanian reception of Hermetica remains hypothetical, the problematic evidence requires us to be satisfi ed for now with likely hypotheses. What is certain is that the earliest appearance of Hermes in Arabic, in the eighth century, is from the Middle Persian tradition, not the Greek.

177. This is a position advocated by Sezgin, GAS 3.xvi, harshly criticized by Plessner 1972 at least for being a premature conclusion, but then strengthened by Kunitzsch 1975 in his survey of the works known to have been translated from Middle Persian into Greek. My position remains that we must test the hypothesis in every instance. Although the most general outlines of the Middle Persian transmis-sion is clear, there is still a huge amount of material to be studied in manuscripts that will show how much or how little trace of this transmission survives, and possibly its general signifi cance in the history of science and the cultures of the ancient world.

178. Nallino 1922 is still the most important contribution to recognizing Arabic translations from Middle Persian.

3

Hermes and the Sābians of Harrān

In 391, emperor theodosius i decreed a law effectively making Christianity the sole legitimate religion of the Roman Empire. The public practices of pagan worship that had once been at the center of civic life—sacrifi ces, the adoration of statues of the gods, and related public celebrations—were now offi cially prohibited.1 In the following years, ancient temples were destroyed or con-verted into churches, and those who persisted in performing the old kind of religion were pressured by new laws gradually depriving them of ordinary rights. Over sev-eral generations, the efforts by the Roman government, combined with mounting social pressure from the growing Christian majority, were largely successful. Paganism entered a long twilight, its last famous Hellenic representatives being the philosophers of the sixth century. By 529 and the reign of Justinian, laws existed mandating baptism for all; those who failed to comply were to be deprived of all property. The actual practice of pagan worship now warranted the death penalty. Although the implementation of such laws evidently varied from case to case, they represented a real and fatally effective threat to pagan practice in the remaining, Byzantine portion of the Roman Empire.2

By the sixth century, pagans in the Byzantine Empire were relatively few in num-ber, but the local worship of ancestral gods did endure longer in certain outposts where such laws could not practically be enforced, perhaps more so than is generally

1. There are several problems inherent in a historian’s use of the word pagan. When I employ it here as a convention, I am following as much as possible the meanings of the term and its equivalents in the languages of the sources that I am discussing. I will discuss these terms and their use in Arabic in due course.

2. The brief telling of this story drastically simplifi es a complicated social history. For introductions in English, see Lane Fox 1986, MacMullen 1984 and 1997, and Chuvin 1990 (to be corrected on the matter of Harrān, pp. 139–141, by this chapter). Trombley 1993–1995 can be consulted for a closely source-based look at different regions; on the laws attributed to Justinian, idem 2.81–97.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

thought.3 One of the longest-lived survivals was in the Syrian city Harrān (Latin Carrhae). The Harrānian pagans became notorious for their stubborn resistance to Christianity, withstanding Christian persecutions until the seventh century, when the Muslim Arabs came to power over them. Under the Arab caliphs, they succeeded in negotiating a marginally legitimate status for their religion. Some of them even became renowned scholars and courtiers, allowed to retain traditions of sacrifi ce and the veneration of the planets while attending the caliph himself. The most famous of these is the Harrānian §ābit ibn Qurra (d. 901), who migrated to Baġdād, where he became an eminent mathematician and translator of Greek and Syriac books into Arabic. Many of his descendants, preserving their ancestral religion in some form for at least a century longer, became physicians, historians, and astrono-mers associated with the caliphs’ court.4 It appears that the intelligentsia of Baġdādwere acquainted through this family with a concept of the ancient, pre-Christian religion that was not entirely negative. These “pagans” in the court are mentioned in Arabic sources as late as the eleventh century, after which they converted and joined the Muslim majority.5

The Harrānian pagans, seeming so out of place in the tenth and eleventh centu-ries, with their religious roots reaching back to ancient Babylonian times, have held a romantic appeal for many historians. However, information about their actual beliefs and practices is scanty and based on tendentious sources, leaving room for widely varying interpretations and uncontrolled historical speculation. It is all too easy to imagine the Harrānian religion as unchanging, given its apparently conser-vative character. We are left largely in the dark about the developments in belief and practice that must have taken place over the centuries, not only through a passive accommodation to new circumstances, but also by the initiative of its adherents. Of course, by the eighth and ninth centuries, their “paganism” must have been different from that of their ancient ancestors. But because of the problematic sources, no one has produced a really satisfactory description of just what these last pagans of Syria were doing, what exactly they believed, and how their beliefs and practices evolved. At least a few things are certain. They were recognized, and designated themselves, as a distinct sect. The Syriac word used by §ābit ibn Qurra for his religion was hanpu-tā, in fact equivalent to the English word paganism;6 Christian authors in

3. Trombley 1993–1995. In the context of another discussion, Watts 2005: 301–305 presents evidence for pagan communities in several places in the Byzantine empire of the sixth century. Morony 1984:384–396 and Hämeen-Anttila’s study of the Nabataean Agriculture (2006) demonstrate the persistence of polytheism of different kinds in Sasanian Mesopotamia.

4. Fihrist 331.23–24: “§ābit ibn Qurra founded the leadership (ri>āsa) of the pagans (as-Sābi>a) in this country [scil. Baġdād] and in the presence of the caliphs. Then they attained secure status, high ranks, and eminence.” Cf. Ibn Abı- Usaybi<a 1.215.31.

5. François de Blois, “Sābi>,” EI2 8.672a–675a, provides a list and genealogy of these later pagans, the Sābians in Baġdād. The end of the S ābians is discussed in section 3.5.

6. As cited by Ibn al-<Ibrı- (Bar <Ebrāyā), Syriac Chronicle, Bodleian MS Hunt. 52 facsimile 55v.a14,trans. 153 (where Budge renders it similarly as “heathenism”).

Background

Syriac used the same term for their pagan foes. According to the near unanimity of the Syriac and Arabic reports, the religion of the Harrānians entailed planet worship and involved ritual sacrifi ces. On the basis of the descriptions in these sources, which mention the names of some ancient Syrian gods, modern scholars have securely connected it with Babylonian and Hellenistic religion, whether one wants to consider that to be a “survival” of ancient religion or a “reimagination” of it, the product of a creative process of imitation and adaptation with each new generation.7

For the history of the Hermetica, the Harrānian pagans have been considered especially important. Besides the Iranian astrologers discussed in the previous chap-ter, they are the only special group credited with possessing works attributed to Hermes and transmitting them into Arabic. By the ninth century, Harrānians were claiming that Hermes was the very prophet of their religion. Yet the evidence for the Harrānian transmission of Hermetica into Arabic faces a major impediment: no one has hitherto been able to show a single surviving Arabic work attributed to Hermes to be defi nitely Harrānian in origin, meaning that it was preserved by or written by a Harrānian practitioner of the ancient pagan religion of that city—whether as a part of that religion or not. The great infl uence that some historians suppose “HarrānianHermetism” to have had on Arabic culture and on Islam lacks sure evidence at this stage. Still the question remains: can any extant Arabic Hermetic text, or indeed any extant work at all, be shown defi nitely to have a Harrānian provenance?

3.1 Introduction to the Problem of the “S bians”

According to a well-known account, in the reign of the caliph al-Ma>mu-n (813–833), the pagan Harrānians are said to have adopted the name Sābians (Arabic Sābi>a) in order to acquire a protected status for their religion.8 Sābian was a designation given

7. The Babylonian background has been explored by Green 1992 (the only recent attempt to tell the entire history of the Harrānian religion) and Pingree 2002. Hjärpe 1972 is an indispensable critical analysis of heresiographic sources on the S ābians of Harrān.

8. They are also said to have changed their style of clothing and long hair to conform with those around them at this time. Their claim to the name Sābian is from the frequently cited report of Abu- Yu-suf Išu< al-Qatı-<ı-, a Christian, related by an-Nadı-m, Fihrist 385.3–30 (Flügel 320.10–321.11). Chwolsohn 1856: 1.140n4 argues that the precise year of the event was 830 (followed by, e.g., Hjärpe 1972:8); Abu- Yu-suf ’s account of it must nevertheless come from approximately a hundred years later, in the time of Sinān ibn §ābit ibn Qurra, since it refers to Sinān (d. 943). It is important to bear in mind that many religions were practiced at Harrān, where there were, according to a witness in 772 ce, the Syriac Chronicle of Zuqnin, “Christians, pagans, Jews, Samaritans, worshippers of fi re and sun, Magians, as well as Muslims, Harrānians and Manichaeans,” trans. Amir Harrak 1999: 272–274, but with the problematic rendering of Harrānāye, “Harrānians,” as Sabaeans (sic), corrected here. Pingree 2002: 18 cites this passage and corrects the text to say “Harrānians” without note. Pagans, hanpe, in this text may mean “Hellenes” (Greek pagans), as opposed to the Harrānians (Syrian pagans of local tradition) whose descendants would later take the name Sābi>a. The matter is uncertain, but the point of the sentence, that all of these different groups were in the city of Harrān at this time, is clear.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

in the Qur>ān (with the form as-Sabi>u-n) for one of the religious groups considered licit in the community of Muh ammad, but the original, intended meaning of the Qur>ānic term Sābian seems to have been lost fairly early.9 The Harrānians suc-ceeded in adopting the name, thereby preserving their religious practice from possible persecution, and Arabic sources from about the time of al-Ma>mu-n gener-ally do call the Harrānian pagans S ābians. They were not, however, the only group that came to be identifi ed as S ābian; the Mandaeans of southern Iraq adopted the name, leading to an ongoing scholarly debate over whether the Mandaeans or the Harrānians were the “real” Sābians. By the early tenth century, any supposed “pagans” or idolaters of any period, such as the ancient Greeks, pre-Christian Romans and Egyptians, and the Buddhists, were also called S ābian.10 The precise identity of the S ābians whom God sanctioned in the Qur>ān was and is a matter of persistent controversy for Muslim exegetes and heresiographers.

Daniel Chwolsohn laid the foundation for modern research on the S ābians with his great two-volume study published in 1856. Despite the problematic character of some of its conclusions, it still remains one of the best resources on the subject, particularly because it collects most of the testimonia about the Sābians available in Arabic. Chwolsohn’s achievement is especially remarkable because, working before most of these texts were printed, he had to read his sources in manuscripts without indices or other modern textual apparatus. His work has to a great extent deter-mined the two main issues under debate regarding the Sābians: who were the S ā-bians referred to in the Qur>ān, and what were the beliefs and practices of the Sābians of Harrān?

There have been many attempts to answer the fi rst question by a wide variety of approaches to numerous different sources, with equally varied answers. Modern scholars have identifi ed the Qur>ānic Sābians as the Mandaeans,11 the hunafā>understood as Gnostics,12 Christian Sabaeans (Saba>, the people of Sheba) of South Arabia,13 the Manichaeans,14 Elchasaites,15 the Gnostics understood as the Archontics or Stratiotics (a Judeo-Christian sect mentioned by Epiphanius in the fourth cen-tury),16 the hunafā> understood as “sectarians,”17 and even just as the Harrānian

9. Qur>ān: 2:62; 5:69; 22:17.10. Already Chwolsohn (1856: 1.13) noted the generalization of the term S ābian for all “pagans,”

ancient or medieval, by the eleventh century (noted as one of Chwolsohn’s major theses by Hjärpe 1972,3). Numerous examples of this usage, which was in fact well established in the early tenth century, will appear in this chapter; see also the appendix to this chapter.

11. Chwolsohn 1856; Gündüz 1994.12. Pedersen 1922: 390; Hjärpe 1972.13. R. Bell 1926: 60.14. De Blois 1995. De Blois’ argument (1995: 51–52) that the real meaning of the term Sābi>a is really

just “converts” is the most convincing etymology yet (cf. Margoliouth 1913: 519b; Genequand 1999: 126).15. Buck 1984.16. Tardieu 1986.17. Genequand 1999: 123–127.

Background

pagans.18 I tend to believe that the real identity of the group intended in the Qur>āncannot be known for certain given the present evidence.19 Gündüz made a chrono-logical survey of the Arabic sources on the S ābians, showing that the Mandaeans were indeed considered to be Sābians from at least the middle of the eighth century, but this does not prove that they were intended as the Qur>ānic Sābians a century earlier.20 Thus the question has never been answered to everyone’s satisfaction. The diversity of scholarly opinions indicates the pressing need to interpret the primary sources in a more critical, comprehensive, and, especially, chronologically ordered way, rather than striking upon a possible conclusion and setting out to prove it.21 If an answer to this question can be obtained, the solution must account for all of the evidence and at least attempt to collect all the ancient and medieval sources of information about the S ābians in a manner showing the development of the terms over time. Fortunately, it is not necessary here to identify the Sābians of the Qur>ān, but only to understand the Qur>ānic origin of the term in Arabic.

The second major issue established by Chwolsohn is the question of the religion of the Harrānians who came to be called S ābians. What was the character of their long-lasting paganism? The answer lies in the interpretation of problematic sources. In his important dissertation on the subject, Jan Hjärpe shows that much of the surviving information describing a Harrānian religion of star worship is rooted in traditions of Syriac Christian heresiography having sources traceable to the tenth century. He considers these to be basically a polemical literary fi ction.22 At the same time he argues that many Arabic reports about the philosophical doctrines of the Harrānian Sābians relate to the family of §ābit ibn Qurra—Harrānian Sābians who had migrated to Baġdād—and that these Harrānians, in the capital of the empire, followed a more philosophically informed religion differing from the old traditions

18. Strohmaier 1996.19. Stroumsa 2004: 335–341 expresses a similar skepticism about the arguments of modern scholars

for the identity of the Sābi>a.20. Gündüz 1994: 22–52, esp. 24–25. If it is true that the compilation of the Mandaean Ginza took

place in the fi rst fi fty years of Islamic rule (Macuch 1965: 176–185), then it seems likely that it was Muslim dominion that prompted the codifi cation of this holy book. The creation of a canonical scripture may perhaps be regarded as an attempt to join ahl al-kitāb (“the people of the book”) and to obtain legitimacy in the eyes of Muslims. In this case the Mandaeans might have been given the name Sābian very early in the history of Islam, but not from the beginning. That they had to take measures to establish a canonical scripture and thus adopt such a name would serve to indicate that they were notthe Sābians of the Qur>ān. On a Mandaic colophon referring to Mandaic manuscript copying activity before and at the time of the advent of the Arab Muslims, see Buckley 1992: 40.

21. Gündüz 1994 comes the closest of all to being comprehensive, and the collection of sources and views provided there should form a basis for future investigations, though Chwolsohn’s detailed notes and comments, although not all pertinent, must not be neglected.

22. Hjärpe 1972: 43–49. The sources are probably not as completely unreliable as Hjärpe claims. For example, he showed (90–92) that the descriptions of the Harrānian religion by al-Mas<u-dı-, ad-Dimašqı-,and aš-Šahrastāni share the common source al-HāriT ibn Sunbāt, a Melkite Christian of Harrān; but one need not necessarily conclude, as Hjärpe seems to do, that this Christian source is so religiously polemical that it has no value whatsoever.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

of Harrān itself. He suggests that it may even have been a sect in schism with the Harrānian religion, and that this schism was due to the “Hermetic theology” of §ābit and his followers.23 In his view, most of the information available about the Harrānian Sābians, where correct, actually concerns the Baġdādı- S ābians alone, the descendants and relations of §ābit. Although there appears to be too little informa-tion to suppose a true “schism” of the kind Hjärpe has in mind, it is entirely plau-sible that the Sābians in Baġdād, just a handful of related families surrounded by other, much larger religious groups, would have practiced their religion differently and held some different beliefs from those back in Harrān, who could presumably comfortably maintain distinctive practices more conspicuously in their own com-munities or neighborhoods. In Hjärpe’s view, then, the inevitable conclusion is that the “traditional” religion and practices of the pagans in Harrān itself become practi-cally inaccessible to the historian. The sources are either unreliably polemical or describe a separate sect, the Baġdādı- sect of §ābit and his progeny.

Michel Tardieu tried to overcome these diffi culties posed by the sources in an infl uential and often-cited study.24 He points out that there was only one Muslim Arabic author who visited Harrān personally while the S ābians were still alive, and then reported about it: the historian al-Mas<u-dı-. He argues that al-Mas<u-dı-’s infor-mation about the Harrānians can be trusted because it is a fi rsthand account. The problem is therefore rooted in the precise interpretation of al-Mas<u-dı-’s words. On this basis, Tardieu built an elaborate argument, trying to show that a group of the Harrānians were truly Platonists, and that they maintained in the time of al-Mas<u-dı-

a Platonic academy founded there in the sixth century by the last Hellenic

23. Hjärpe 1972: 35–39, following a similar discussion by Chwolsohn. The report about doctrinal differences between §ābit and the rest of the Harrānians may be to some extent a later fabrication to dissociate §ābit’s descendants to a degree from them; it is found in its fullest form in Ibn ¢allikān’s biography of §ābit ibn Qurra (1.313.8–14): wa-garā baynahu- wa-bayna ahli maDhabihī ašyā>u ankaru-hā<alyahi fī l-maDhabi fa-rāfa<u-hu ilā ra>īsihim fa-ankara <alyahi maqālatahu- wa-mana<ahu- min duxu-lil-haykali fa-tāba wa-raga<a <an Dālika Tumma <āda ba<da muddatin ilā tilka l-maqālati fa-mana<u-humina d-duxu-li ilā l-magma<i fa-xaraga min Harrāna wa-nazala Kafratu-Tā wa-aqāma bihā muddatan ilāan qadima Muhammadu bnu Mu-sā min bilādi r-Ru-mi rāgi<an ilā Baġdāda fa-gtama<a bihī fa-ra>āhufād. ilan fasīhan fa-stashabahu- ilā Baġdāda wa-anzalahu- fī dārihī wa-wasalahu- bi-l-xalīfati fa-adxalahu-

fī gumlati l-munaggimīna fa-sakana Baġdāda wa-awlada l-awlāda wa-<aqibuhu- bihā ilā l-āni. “Some things transpired between [§ābit] and his coreligionists, for which they reproached him on the matter of the religion. They summoned him before their leader, who reproached his doctrine and forbade him to enter the temple. He repented and desisted from it, but after a while he came again to that doctrine, so they forbade him from entering the assembly. Then he left Harrān and settled in Kafratu-Tā [a town near Dārā]. He lived there a while until Muhammad ibn Mu-sā [a scholar infl uential in the caliph’s court] arrived from the Byzantine lands on his way back to Baġdād, and met him there. He saw that he was an excellent man and fl uent [in Arabic], so asked him to accompany him to Baġdād, and put him up in his own house. He brought him to the caliph, who admitted him into his group of astrologers. Then he stayed in Baġdād and had children. His descendants are there until now.” The second part, omitting the information about §ābit’s doctrinal differences with the Harrānians, was abbreviated already in the Fihrist (331.22–23) of 987; because the account is evidently written after §ābit’s death in 901, it must come from a tenth-century source.

24. Tardieu 1986.

Background

philosophers upon their return from their stay in the Persian Empire as guests of ¢usro I. I do not agree with this theory, which I discuss in detail below.

Many questions about the nature of Harrānian paganism under Muslim rule remain. Scholars are almost as divided about this issue as they are about the identity of the S ābians intended in the Qur>ān. Were the Harrānian Sābians star worship-pers,25 Platonists or Neoplatonists,26 Gnostics or Hermetists,27 perhaps both Platonic and Hermetic simultaneously,28 or something else?29 And were there two differing sects of Harrānian Sābians, Harrānian and Baġdādı-? All these questions cannot be answered here, but the knotty problem of the alleged “Hermetism” of the Harrā-nians requires investigation in this study of the Arabic Hermes. In the introduction, I showed how the term Hermetist has been used in recent times very loosely to describe a number of different authors in Arabic without any special defi nition of the term. The same remarks apply equally here: because Hermetism as such has long been a subject of debate, we are forced to reject the term entirely for now on the grounds that it has never been adequately defi ned for the study of Arabic literature. Therefore, rather than seeking to label the Harrānians as Hermetists or something else—for such labels explain nothing about their practices and beliefs, and no Arabic source ever calls the Harrānians by such a name—I will confi ne myself solely to the search for works attributed to Hermes among the Harrānians. If these Syrian pagans did indeed use books attributed to Hermes, it might be possible to call them Hermetists in some restricted sense. We might be able to seek a better term of description for the Harrānians only after we have actually comprehended their beliefs, though this prerequisite in itself may be impossible, particularly so if their religion was more a matter of customary practice than philosophical doctrine.

3.2 A H. arranian Platonic School?

Tardieu’s hypothesis of a Platonic school at Harrān lasting from the sixth to the tenth century requires close attention here because it supposes an institution of

25. Chwolsohn 1856 and many after him have taken the Arabic sources at face value and accepted the description of the Harrānians as astrolaters.

26. Hjärpe 1972 argues that the Harrānians who moved to Baġdād were Neoplatonists. Tardieu 1986argues that one segment of Harrānian society had been Platonists since the sixth century.

27. None of those who suggest that the Harrānian Sābians were “Hermetists” offer a defi nition of the term’s meaning in the context of Arabic literature or in any context. Marquet 1966: 55: “Les harrāniens, en effet, sont incontestablement hermétistes, et fort peu néo-platoniciens.” Hjärpe 1972considered the original Harrānian tradition to be both Hermetic and Gnostic.

28. Hadot 2007: 53–56 argues that the Platonism inherited by the Harrānians had long before integrated “Hermetism” into itself.

29. Walbridge 2001: 38: “It seems that the ancient moon cult of Harran had evolved into a Hermetic sect that worshipped the planets.” H. Corbin’s imagination created a Harrānian Sābianism all of his own out of sources drawn randomly from different eras (1951). Muhammad <Abdalhamı-d al-Hamd1998 unconvincingly attempts to prove that the Ixwān as-Safā> were Harrānian Sābians.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

learning wherein ancient Greek books, including Hermetica, might be imagined to have been continuously preserved. Although this hypothesis seems generally now to be regarded as controversial at best, it has been cited as authoritative by a number of scholars in the last twenty years, and, despite critical scrutiny in several publications, still very recently some continue to defend it strenuously, particularly I. Hadot.30

The hypothetical Harrānian transmission of Hermetic books is implicated in the matter insofar as the Platonists or Neoplatonists alleged to be at Harrān can readily be assumed to have preserved works of Hermes.31

Tardieu developed his theory beginning with a critical reevaluation of Hjärpe’s study.32 Ultimately he accepts Hjärpe’s distinction between two types of Harrānians, one more philosophical than the other. However, instead of treating them as a tra-ditional Harrānian group and a separate offshoot sect of intellectuals at Baġdād, as Hjärpe did, Tardieu situates the split between the two putative groups within the city of Harrān itself, not in two different locations. The basis for his distinction lies in claiming the existence of an old institution of instruction, in fact a Platonic acad-emy, surviving in Harrān long after the advent of Islam, in the tenth century. The appeal of the theory for a historian is that such a school would seem by its very existence to help to explain the revival of Greek philosophy in Arabic translation, as a sort of direct survival from pre-Islamic antiquity.

His attempt to prove that this school was at Harrān under Muslim rule depends in fact on the interpretation of just two main pieces of evidence in Arabic.33 The fi rst

30. The basic arguments are laid out in Tardieu 1986, supplemented by 1987. Examples of publications accepting, repeating, or expanding Tardieu’s hypothesis are Monnot 1986: 5; Hadot 1987,1990: 280–289, 1996: 28–50, 2001: xiii–xxxiii, and 2007; Chuvin 1990: 11 and 139–141; Athanassiadi 1993:24–29; Thiel 1999; and Vallat 2004: 19–23 (but not entirely: 19n2). Lameer 1997 and R. Lane Fox 2005provide important correctives that I accept in most, though not all, of their details, and build upon them here. Gutas 1999: 156n2 and Genequand 1999: 114–115 and 124–125 disagree with Tardieu’s hypothesis. Endress 1990: 10n24 demands more evidence for the theory. Green 1992: 168 and Brittain and Brennan 2002: 3–4 give reasons not to be convinced. Sheppard 2000: 841–842 considers the evidence insuffi cient. Luna 2001 criticizes Tardieu’s and Thiel’s arguments in detail, dealing with the misinterpretation of the Greek evidence. Stroumsa 2004: 338–340 agrees with Gutas and Lameer. Watts 2005 is devoted to a critique of and alternative to Tardieu’s hypothesis about the philosophers’ settling in the sixth century Harrān. Hadot 2007 offers rejoinders to several of the objections, mostly just repeating the arguments of Tardieu (missing Lane Fox 2005, no doubt too recent to have been taken into account). Pingree 2002 basically accepts Tardieu’s argument, rejecting Lameer’s criticisms on the grounds that he “ignores the fact that he met men there who had an assembly hall (majma<) and who informed him correctly that the Syriac inscriptions on its door-knocker were quotations from Plato” (10n10). On this magma<, and criticism of Pingree’s understanding of the Harrānians, see below.

31. Thus Hadot 2007: 53–56 and 103 makes their supposed Neoplatonism the basis for their alleged Hermetism.

32. Tardieu 1986: 3–11. One of Tardieu’s positive contributions here is to call into question the designation of Harrānians as “Gnostic.”

33. Tardieu’s argument for the foundation of a Platonic school in Harrān in the sixth century uses also Greek evidence challenged by Luna 2001 and Watts 2005; Hadot 2007 raises objections to the latter two. The present discussion is concerned primarily with the Arabic data that were Tardieu’s starting point.

Background

is part of al-Mas<u-dı-’s rambling description, in the early tenth century, based on his own visit to the city, of the Harrānian Sābians and their magma< (gathering place).34

The passage is this:

This community, known as the Harrānians and the Sābians, has philoso-phers [*consists of philosophers (see discussion below)]; however, they are some of the common riffraff of the philosophers, differing from their élite sages [scil. the élite sages of the philosophers] in their doctrines.36 I consider them philosophers only by way of lineage, not by way of wisdom, because they are Hellenes (Yu-nānīya); not all of the Hellenes are philosophers; only their [scil. the Hellenes’] sages are the philosophers.

I saw on the door-knocker of the gathering-place of the S ābians (magma<as-Sābi>a) in Harrān a saying of Plato written in Syriac of which Malik ibn <Uqbu-n and others of them informed me the interpretation. It is, “He who knows his essence becomes divine.”

Plato has said, “Man is a heavenly plant. The indication of it is that he is like an inverted tree: its roots are toward heaven and its branches are toward the earth.” [Al-Mas<u-dı- then adds that there are many doctrines attributed to Plato on the soul, etc.]

Tardieu begins with a misunderstanding of the fi rst sentence. He takes the referent of the possessive pronoun in xawāss hukamā>ihim (lit. “the élite of their sages,” equivalent to “their élite sages”) to refer back to the Harrānians rather than to the philosophers, the natural referent.37 Thus, in his interpretation, the philosophers of the Harrānians differ “from the Harrānians’ élite sages in their doctrines.”38 This

34. This is found in his Muru-g aD-Dahab (ed. Pellat §§1394–1395 = 2.293.1–8, trans. 2.536–537) a work completed between 943 and 956 (Charles Pellat, “al-Mas<u-dı-,” EI2, 6.784a–789a).

35. On the reading of this word, see below.36. The Arabic term hašwīya, which I have translated as “riffraff,” was a term of derogation used by

some Muslim sectarians for other Muslims who adhered to an especially literal interpretation of the Qur>ānand hadīT, scholars who collected religious traditions without being capable of interpreting them. The implication here is that these Harrānians follow the same religion as the philosophers but are incapable of interpreting their religious traditions in a sophisticated or intelligent way. See “Hashwiyya,” EI2, 3.269b.

37. Pointed out fi rst by Lameer 1997: 187–188; seconded by Lane Fox 2005: 235–236.38. Tardieu 1986: 17–18.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

leads him to posit two distinct groups among the Harrānians: “low” sages and “high” philosophers, “followers of the pagan religion of the town, and the ‘sages’ in the strict sense, heirs of the Greek philosophers.”39

Joep Lameer pointed out a potentially serious objection to Tardieu’s reading beyond the crucial misunderstanding of the pronoun. The great majority of the manuscripts of the text (as observed by Chwolsohn) lack the possessive li- at the sentence’s beginning. As there is no suffi ciently critical edition of the text, Tardieu followed the reading he found in print. However, if one follows the better attested alternative along with Lameer, one must translate: “This community . . . consists of philosophers . . .” This sentence, dif-fering by a single letter, clearly leaves no room for holding that there was more than one group.40 Sure enough, in another passage in the same work, al-Mas<u-dı- repeats himself using the same words and with no ambiguity at all, referring to “the S ābi>ans of the Harrānians, who are the common Hellenes and the riffraff of the ancient philoso-phers.” This leaves no doubt that Lameer’s reading is the correct one.41 Even if this evi-dence is ignored, al-Mas<u-dı-’s immediately subsequent words in the passage under discussion invalidate Tardieu’s interpretation, showing that in his opinion there were no real philosophers in Harrān: “I consider them philosophers only by way of lineage, not by way of wisdom, because they are Hellenes (Yu-nānīya); not all of the Hellenes are philosophers; only their sages [scil. the sages of the Hellenes] are the philosophers.” The word Yu-nānī is the Arabic equivalent of Greek % Ekkgm (Hellene) in its contemporary Byzantine usage, having the same two overlapping meanings: it means either ethnically Greek but not Christian,42 or, more generally, just pagan.43 Insofar as pagan Greeks were largely a thing of the past by the time of Arabic literature, Yu-nān is often treated as one

39. Tardieu 1986: 17–18. The same objections have already been discussed by Lameer 1997: 188.Hadot’s criticism (2007: 59–60) of Lameer’s argument does not address this point.

40. Lameer 1997: 187–188. In response, Hadot 2007: 59–60 makes much of rejecting Lameer’s preferred reading (the single variant letter) on the grounds that it is not the quantity, but the quality, of manuscripts that should determine the archetype; a stemma codicum should determine which manuscripts, and which of their readings, have greater value. All this is quite true. However, she surprisingly concludes from this that Lameer’s reading “has no value.” In so arguing, she overlooks a fundamental consideration: lacking a critical edition, her own preferred reading, that of Tardieu, based on a small minority of manuscripts, is equally arbitrary. Strangely, she does not address any other part of Lameer’s discussion, which challenged Tardieu’s interpretation of the passage on other salient points.

41. Muru-g (Pellat §219 = 1.109.1–2): as-Sābi>atu mina l-Harrānīyīna wa-hum <awāmmu l-Yu-nānī-yīna wa-hašwīyatu l-falāsifati l-mutaqaddimīna. A key-word here is <awāmm, which refers to unedu-cated masses or the uninitiated.

42. Christian intellectuals, even those monolingual in Greek, had long considered themselves as having a separate, non-Hellenic ethnicity. On the development of this narrative, see Lechner 1955 and more recently A. P. Johnson 2006.

43. The use of % Ekkgm purely to mean “pagan” in the ninth century is shown by its rendering as umamī, “gentile,” in the Arabic translation of Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians (Ullmann 2002–2007: 1.234). In the tenth century, the Syriac-Arabic lexicographer Bar Bahlu-l (2.764) defi nes the hanpā or pagan as idol-worshipper, adding “in Greek (it is) Hellenios” (Helêniyôs); furthermore he glosses it in Arabic as “ignorant hanīf ” (al-hanīf al-gāhil). Interestingly, the Sābian Sinān ibn §ābit was one of this lexicon’s sources (Bar Bahlu-l 2.734.3; cf. 3.xxiv), though he is not cited in this entry. Already Procopius in the sixth century clearly alludes to the generalization of the Greek word (De bellis 1.20): . . . épeidñ

Background

of many bygone nations of ancient history, a nation that, as Arabic historians knew, had once produced important philosophers, but had long ago been overcome and replaced by ar-Ru-m, the Roman-Byzantine Empire of the Christians. In the present case, al-Mas<u-dı- demonstrates his awareness of the word’s ambiguity when he tries to clarify what he means, albeit in his characteristically sloppy manner: the Harrānians are phi-losophers not in the strict sense of the word, but only in that they are descendants of the ancient pagans or Hellenes; they are certainly not philosophers because of wisdom. The distinction is not, as Tardieu would have it, between common pagans and pagan phi-losophers, two different groups in Harrān; it is between two groups within a single historical ethnic category, the Hellenes. The Harrānians are excluded from the ranks of real philosophers despite their Hellenic, pagan, lineage.44

Thinking he has discovered a special group of practitioners of a distinctively Greek philosophy in tenth-century Harrān, Tardieu then turns to the second part of the passage cited and supposes that the word magma< (most neutrally “gathering place”) here must signify “academy,” a meaning of the word not otherwise attested in premodern Arabic, and that the door-knocker inscription ascribed to Plato proves it to have been specifi cally a Platonic academy.45 He thinks, moreover, that the reported saying derives from 1 Alcibiades.46 Because 1 Alcibiades was an introductory

<OlgqisËm sËm ém s© �msipåqa| òpe¨q{ ìcmx pokkoÀ| lçm \Iotda¨ot| √msa|, pokkoÀ| dç dænam sóm

pakai�m råbomsa|, ùm dó jako’rim <Ekkgmijóm oØ m’m �mhqxpoi, épibotk© låsqom oÃj évo rz é| soÀ|

éje¨mz VqirsiamoÀ| vqûrhai . . . “. . . since he learned that many Jews and many others venerating the ancient faith, which people today call Hellenic, of the Himyarites in the opposite land [Yemen], were treating the Christians there with exceeding treachery . . . ” Here even South Arabian Himyarites follow the Hellenic, that is polytheistic, pagan, religion; this does not mean that they are ethnically Greeks.

44. Cf. Genequand 1999: 114–115. Vallat 2004: 19–23 claims that, at least in some cases, “Yu-nānı-yu-n = % Ekkgme| = Platonists.” The last part of the equation does not hold. Vallat cites very few witnesses for it, and none of them actually establishes that Yu-nānı-yu-n ever certainly meant “Platonists,” an interpreta-tion requiring one to ignore countless other examples of the word’s use in Arabic. Yet Hadot 2007:56–69 cites Vallat at length, trying thereby to bolster Tardieu’s argument by making Platonists out of the Yu-nānı-yu-n/Hellenes described by al-Mas<u-dı- at Harrān. This is based on ignorance of the common Arabic usage, to which Vallat in fact refers (2004: 20n3).

45. Tardieu 1986: 17–18.46. The resemblance of the text reported by al-Mas<u-dı- to Plato’s 1 Alcibiades 133c is not precise (as

also noted by Green 1992: 167, Lameer 1997: 189, and Lane Fox 2005: 236). Al-Mas<u-dı- has, “He who knows his essence becomes divine,” man <arafa Dātahu- ta’allaha; Plato, 1 Alcibiades 133b–c, writes, “Socrates: And if the soul too, my dear Alcibiades, is to know herself, she must surely look at a soul, and especially at that region of it in which occurs the virtue of a soul—wisdom, and at any other part of a soul which resembles this? Alcibiades: I agree, Socrates. Socrates: And can we speak of any part of the soul more divine than this, which is the seat of knowing and thinking? Alcibiades: We cannot. Socrates: Then this part of her resembles God, and whoever looks at this, and comes to know all that is divine, will gain thereby the best knowledge of himself.” (Translation by B. Jowett, slightly modifi ed.) This says that the one who sees the part of the soul that is wisdom, and thus knows the divine, also gains knowledge of himself. This is a somewhat different meaning from the Arabic just cited, although the pithy character of the Arabic phrase allows easy comparisons. Al-Mas<u-dı- mentions this saying, cited in different form, in another discussion of the Sābians in his Kitāb at-Tanbīh wa-l-išrāf (162.4): man <arafa nafsahu- haqīqata l-ma<rifati ta>allaha. “He who knows himself with true knowledge becomes divine.”

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

text for late antique Platonists, he suggests that it would be symbolically appropriate for a door-knocker, the entrance of the supposed school.47 The idea that it is an apt symbol is taken as corroboration of the view that the building is a Platonic acad-emy.48 However, loosely Platonic sayings of all types were commonplaces by the tenth century, and one maxim on a door obviously cannot prove the existence of an entire academy.49 Even if al-Mas<u-dı- had seen an actual school (the evidence for that being nil), there would be no reason to think that it was either very old or specifi -cally devoted to Platonic studies.50 But Tardieu, assuming there defi nitely to be Platonic philosophers at Harrān, argues speciously that, “Now, as the School of Harrān did not fall from the sky in the fi rst century of the higra,” one must assume that this was the last resort of the Neoplatonist philosophers on their return from the Persian Empire in the sixth century, and that these philosophers are the ones who founded the school seen by al-Mas<u-dı-.51 According to this assumption, the Platonic academy must have existed there continuously for more than three hun-dred years. Tardieu and those following him fi nd no impediment to the argument in the total absence of evidence from the intervening period for such an institution: no authors from that school, unless we take the sixth-century philosophers as the founders, but certainly none thereafter;52 no references to such a pagan school of

47. Tardieu 1986: 19.48. Repeated by Hadot 2007: 52–53.49. On a number of closely similar, yet not all strictly Platonic, sayings in Arabic, see Rosenthal

1940: 409–410 and Altmann 1963. As Tardieu (1986: 14) says, the Platonic maxim next reported by al-Mas<u-dı- in the same passage (“Man is a heavenly plant; the indicator of that is that he is like an upturned tree with its trunk toward heaven and its branches toward the earth”) is surely derived from Plato’s Timaeus 90a7, but we do not know at how many removes; it was common enough to be found, with different wording, in Ibn Wahšı-ya’s Nabataean Agriculture (1.360.7–9), evidently translated from Aramaic (mentioned in this context also by T. Fahd, “Sābi>a,” EI2, 8.675a–678b) and in an Ismā<ı-lı-’s reminiscences of a conversation with a well-read dā<ī in Qayrawān in 909 (Madelung and Walker 2000:trans. 154, text 108). In any case, there is no indication that al-Mas<u-dı- took this second saying from Harrānians, as Tardieu thinks (1986: 14); the conjunction (wa-qad qāla Aflātu-n…) shows rather that this is just one of al-Mas<u-dı-’s typical digressions (as also intuited by Lane Fox 2005: 237).

50. Cf. Lameer 1997: 188–189.51. Tardieu 1986: 23. On this issue see Watts 2005.52. The thirteenth-century historian Ibn al-Qiftı- (206.9) says that Simplicius “had companions and

students known as his” (wa-kāna lahu- ashābun wa-atbā<un yu<rafu-na bihī). Hadot takes this to show “L’existence d’une école renommée de mathématiques” (2007: 102) that “Simplicius directed” (1990:302). It is too great a leap from the unproved statement that Simplicius had students to positing a “famous school of mathematics” or to the belief that Simplicius founded a Platonic academy lasting for several centuries at Harrān and nowhere else. Indeed, Ibn al-Qiftı- knows almost nothing about Simplicius, saying in a short entry of just four and a half lines that he was formerly famous inGreece—not currently—as a mathematician, and naming only one of his works. In Arabic translations of Simplicius’ mathematical works, Simplicius makes reference to his colleague or companion (sāhib)whose name is rendered >ġ>nys, a name distorted in Arabic and from whom passages are cited (Sabra 1969: 5–7). Hadot (1990: 302, 2001: xx, 2007: 78–79) takes this individual as further evidence of an entire school, where Aganis is understood, following Tardieu’s interpretation, as an Egyptian name, meaning “cup” or “jug”(!). (On the reading of the name, perhaps as Agapius, see Sabra 1968: 13n6.) Following Tardieu again in rather wild onomastic speculation, Hadot has also pointed repeatedly (1990: 293n73,

Background

Harrān anywhere in Syriac Christian literature; not even one name of any master or disciple from this Harrānian school from the seventh to the tenth century; no books the Harrānian Platonists produced or copied, no commentaries they authored, not even one reference to a title designated as specifi c to this supposed academy, over the three intervening centuries, surviving in Greek, Syriac, or Arabic.53

Tardieu also points to a reference to the magma< of the Harrānians found in another source, the Harrānian calendar in the Fihrist. The Harrānians are reported there to eat a certain annual meal in their magma<, an activity perhaps to be expected in a town’s gathering-hall. Yet Tardieu concludes from this rather that there must then have been two magma<s, two separate institutions frequented by the two differ-ent communities he has hypothesized from his misreading of the fi rst part of al-Mas<u-dı-’s description. He takes these as communities “in rivalry”: the old pagans of Harrān, who have some kind of ordinary gathering place, and the Platonists, who have their Academy (both places being magma<s).54 This interpretation requires one to overlook the fact that in both al-Mas<u-dı-’s report and the Harrānian calendar, the magma< is grammatically defi nite and singular. Neither text says “in one of the magma<s of the Harrānians.” Probably their magma< was just a public hall of assem-bly or a temple used by the pagans of Harrān on such festive occasions.55 Indeed, the passage from al-Mas<u-dı- mentioning the magma< occurs under the rubric “Discussion of the Venerated Houses and Honored Temples of the S ābians,” wherein the subject is just the temples of the Sābians. Tardieu overlooks this context.

For his second piece of evidence, Tardieu refers to a well-known account, related by al-Mas<u-dı-, al-Fārābı-, and others, of the transfer of the instruction in the ancient sciences from Alexandria to Antioch, then to Harrān, and then to Baġdād.56 Yet this is far from a proof of a Platonic school in Harrān. Dimitri Gutas has analyzed these

1996: 42, 2001: 22, 2007: 82–83) to a reference in the Fihrist to a lost work of Simplicius dedicated to a certain person whose name appears in the printed edition as >T>w>lys (Fihrist 311.27–312.1). In order to prove that this person was Syrian—because the view that Simplicius had settled in Harrān might, in this view, be furthered if Simplicius at some time dedicated a work to a Syrian—Tardieu proposed to Hadot the far-fetched interpretation of >T>w>lys as a combination of the name of a god yt< or >t<, found in fi ve Safaitic graffi ti and one Greek inscription (S afaitic inscriptions, from the Syrian desert, dating from the fi rst century bce to the third ce), and the Greek name OÃ�kg| (= Valens) to make a “nom théophore.” Tardieu takes the loss of the consonant <ayn in the supposed composite name as proof that the work of Simplicius was composed in Greek. This interpretation requires us to accept the existence of the unattested and highly implausible name *Etha-Oualês and the unlikely premise that the Arabic name should be read exactly as the editors of the Fihrist read it. For a more complete and sober approach to this name see Aouad 1989.

53. Cf. Brittain and Brennan 2002: 5.54. Tardieu 1986: 17–19, referring to the text of Fihrist 287.25. It says wa-ya>kulu-na fī magma<ihim,

“and they eat in their magma<.”55. Yahyā al-Antākı-’s chronicle (Kratchkowsky 1997: 150.17) refers to the confi scation in 1031 of a

(not the) magma< of the Sābians (magma<an li-s-Sābi>a), identifi ed specifi cally as the moon temple. The event is further discussed in section 3.5. See also the passage in note 23 stating that §ābit ibn Qurra was forbidden from entering the magma<.

56. Tardieu 1986: 24–26.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

accounts in detail, showing that they were concerned not with Platonic tradition, but rather the Alexandrian medical curriculum, including a limited course in Aristotelian logic.57 The reasons that Harrān appears in this narrative at all are still not clear.58 In any case, Tardieu interprets the reports not at face value but merely as confi rmation of the “intellectual vitality” at Harrān (as well as Antioch).59 In fact, only a single anonymous Harrānian philosopher is mentioned in the more detailed rendering of the account by al-Fārābı-.60 A certain Quwayrā is supposed to have studied with this Harrānian (who learned something from another, unnamed man from Antioch) before going to teach in Baġdād, where the Christian philosopher Mattā ibn Yu-nus (one of al-Fārābı-’s teachers) was one of his students. This Quwayrāis not credited with any works apart from commentaries on the fi rst four books of the Organon. Even these commentaries were obsolete by the late tenth century, for an-Nadı-m described them as “rejected and avoided because their style was halting and obscure.”61 A physical description, perhaps fi ctitious, of Quwayrā appears in a correspondence attributed to as-Saraxsı- (d. 899), probably Quwayrā’s contempo-rary, in which Quwayrā is portrayed as a Christian monk.62 Thus the “Harrānian” tradition of philosophy in the narrative seems to be constituted of only two indi-viduals, perhaps Christian monks, interested in logic but of no known special attainments.63 The S ābians or pagans of Harrān are never named in connection with the account of the transfer of instruction from Alexandria to Baġdād. Only the city of Harrān is mentioned.

One of the reasons to search for an institution of philosophical instruction in Harrān is the simple fact that it was the place of origin of the Sābian scholar §ābit

57. Gutas 1999. Tardieu 1986: 22 already recognized that these narratives deal with the medical curriculum, but claimed that this medical curriculum was one part of the teaching of philosophy; thus he claims the narratives really deal with the transfer of a school of philosophy. Hadot 2007: 61n64points out that the narratives appear to describe philosophical education when related by philosophers, and medical education when related by physicians. Her implication appears to be that al-Mas<u-dı-,whose narrative is the most abbreviated and least specifi c about the subjects of instruction, is to be accepted as most reliable. Yet it remains that only the logical Organon and the medical curriculum are specifi ed in these narratives, whereas neither Plato nor any Neoplatonic philosopher is so named.

58. Gutas 1999: 187–188. Lameer 1997 suggested that Antioch and Harrān appear as philosophical centers in this complex of accounts because the former was the place of “spiritual origin” of the Eastern Christians, and Harrān of the Sābians; important translators came from both groups. This theory appears quite unlikely. The eastern Iranian city Marw also appears in the account of the transmission of the sciences, occupying approximately the same position of importance (or lack thereof) as Harrān(Gutas 1999: 165), but no one today tries to locate a school of Platonic philosophy in Marw!

59. Tardieu 1986: 26.60. The accounts of al-Mas<u-dı- and of al-Fārābı- derive from a common source (Gutas 1999:

187n89).61. Fihrist 321.15–18 (Flügel 262.23–25).62. The amusing correspondence is studied in English translation by Rosenthal 1943: 86–94. The

description of Quwayrā as a monk is on 88, the epithet “Christian” comes on 90 and 91, and the judgment of Yāqu-t on the authenticity of the correspondence is given on 93–94.

63. Tardieu 1986: 25 accepts that the Harrānian in al-Fārābı-’s lineage must have been a Christian.

Background

ibn Qurra. Tardieu writes, “Platonism or, if one prefers, Neoplatonism was not cre-ated at Baġdād ex nihilo by §ābit ibn Qurra. He himself was dependent on the instruction he had received in Harrān.”64 The supporters of Tardieu’s theory seem to wish to prove that §ābit, along with “Arabic Neoplatonism” as such, was the product of a direct line of Platonic teachers from Simplicius, reaching back through his teachers to Proclus and even earlier. There are two main problems with this idea. One must bear in mind fi rst that there was a great deal of information about the philosophy of Plato and his Neoplatonic heirs in Arabic that clearly has nothing to do with any Harrānian.65 As for §ābit himself, only one among the nearly two hun-dred Arabic works attributed to him appears to deal directly with Plato;66 of his many original translations from Greek, his revisions of the translations of others from Greek, and his epitomes of Greek works, not even one is a work of Plato, although he did undertake to translate a Neoplatonic commentary on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras (apparently late in life, because he died before accomplishing much of it).67 The titles of his own research and writings indicate that §ābit’s inter-ests were primarily, not to say overwhelmingly, with mathematics and their applica-tions in astronomy and astrology, and secondarily with Galenic medicine and Aristotelian physics.68 Tellingly, Tardieu does not refer to a single specifi c work of §ābit in his reference to §ābit’s supposed Platonism.69 In fact, we know almost noth-ing about the early education of §ābit in or near Harrān, and we do not know even when he moved to Baġdād and entered the company of the court astrologers, though it was perhaps while he was still an unformed young man.70

64. Tardieu 1986: 11.65. Rosenthal 1940, Gutas 1988, Adamson 2002, Endress 2007.66. This is his Book on Resolving the Allegories in Plato’s Republic (Kitāb fī hall rumu-z Kitāb

as-Siyāsa li-Aflātu-n) (Ibn al-Qiftı- 120.7). He also wrote a Treatise on the Proof attributed to Socrates on the Square and Its Diagonal (Kitāb Risāliatihī fī al-hugga al-mansu-ba ilā Suqrāt fī l-murabba< wa-qutrihī) (Fihrist 331.26). While the contents of this work concern a geometrical problem discussed in Plato’s Meno, §ābit apparently does not deal with the main issues of that work in his treatise: see Endress 2007: 328–329 and Gutas, forthcoming.

67. §ābit translated into Arabic three out of one hundred folia of a Syriac translation a Commentary on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras (Fihrist 313.2–3; ed. Flügel 252.16–18), but died leaving it unfi nished. (The report says that the commentary was by Proclus, but this is probably a mistake for Hierocles; thus R. Walzer, “Buruqlus,” EI2, 1.1399b–1.1340b.) It need hardly be said that an interest in this book does not prove that he was trained in a Neoplatonic Academy in his home of Harrān.

68. This general point also made by Lane Fox 2005: 239–240. In different contexts, Hadot takes both the study of mathematics (Hadot 1990: 302) and of medicine (2007: 61n64) as supporting evidence for a school of Platonic philosophy, even when there are no connected references to Plato whatsoever.

69. He cites Wiedemann 1920–1921, where there is no reference to §ābit’s supposed Neoplatonism. Of course, §ābit was probably interested somehow in Plato, as much as any of his philosophically minded contemporaries were (on which see Endress 2007).

70. Hadot twice (1996: 31, 2001: xix) demonstrates how much confusion Tardieu has inspired when she refers to “la fameuse école de Bagdad, fondée par Tabit b. Qurra vers 901 après qu’il eut quitté Harran . . . héritière des néoplatoniciens harraniens.” No Arabist, as far as I am aware, has ever suggested that §ābit founded a school, let alone a famous one. Moreover, 901 is the year of §ābit’s death!

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

In short, none of the Arabic evidence, upon careful scrutiny, supports the hypoth-esis of a Platonic school at Harrān.71 Consequently there is no reason for the desper-ate attempts to prove that the Hellenic philosophers of the sixth century settled at Harrān and nowhere else.72 Although current publications continue to repeat Tardieu’s arguments, the history of early Arabic philosophy and the reception of Platonic or Hermetic Greek works in Arabic translation are much more compli-cated than the hypothesis of a single important, continuously existing, but totally unattested institution of learning will allow.

3.3 The Alleged Influence of H. arranian Hermetica

A general conclusion, often an assumption, among scholars who have dealt with the Arabic Hermetica is that these texts come from the Sābians of Harrān.73 The

71. This is not to say that no Harrānians took any interest in Plato, but that is different from claiming the existence of an institution of learning with a continuous existence over several centuries.

72. See Hadot 2007 versus Watts 2005 and Luna 2001. The argument over where the philosophers settled on their return from the Persian Empire is a separate problem based on the analysis of evidence mostly internal to the works of the philosophers of the sixth century. One must avoid a circular argument whereby a supposed tenth-century school proves its supposed sixth-century foundation and vice versa. Nevertheless it is not irrelevant to indicate here a fl aw in one of the main arguments for the philosophers’ relocation to Harrān in the sixth century. Tardieu points out (1986: 24n105) that the philosopher Simplicius argues against certain Manichaean doctrines, which, Simplicius says, were explained to him by a Manichaean sage. Tardieu thinks (followed most recently by Hadot 2007: 68) that there were only two cities in the Byzantine Empire where Manichaeans could with certainty be found in the sixth century: Byzantium and Harrān. Partly on this basis he concludes that Simplicius must have lived in Harrān after his return from the Persian Empire. With the exception of Lane Fox 2005:232–233, the published arguments, whether supporting or criticizing the theory, focus on the nature of Simplicius’ possible contact with Manichaeans (Luna 2001: 490–492; Watts 2005: 292–293; Hadot 2007:63–75) and do not address the exceedingly tenuous character of Tardieu’s evidence for Manichaeans at Harrān at this time in the fi rst place, namely just two texts: (1) The Zuqnin Chronicle (also known as the Chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tell-Mahre), reports that, in 764–765, the governor of al-Gazı-ra punished Manichaeans who had a monastery one mile from Harrān (Chabot 1927–1933: 224.1–226.3;Harrak 1999: 202–204; see also Harrak 2004); (2) According to John Kyparissiotes in the fourteenth century, anti-Manichaean synods were held by Theodore Abu- Qurra, bishop of Harrān, who fl ourished in the early ninth century (Lamoreaux 2002: 38). These testimonies cannot in any way prove the existence of Manichaeans exclusively at Harrān two hundred years before the events in question, especially when is well known that Manichaeans fl ourished to a degree in the intervening Umayyad period (F. C. de Blois, “Zindı-q, EI2, 11.510a–513b). The supposed exclusivity of Harrān as a site for Simplicius’ possible conversation with a Manichaean in the sixth century is untenable and Simplicius’ reference to a Manichaean cannot be accepted as evidence for his fi nal habitation.

73. Examples: Stapleton, Lewis, and Sherwood Taylor 1949: 69–70: “The infl uence of the star- worshipping Sabæans of Harrān, to whom Hermes-Thoth was the god of all civilising inventions, was widespread in the Islamic world.” Fück 1951: 111 stated that “there can hardly be any doubt” that Abu-

Ma<šar’s views on different fi gures named Hermes “reproduced notions prevalent in his time, i.e. about A.D. 860, amongst the so-called S ābians of Harrān.” Nasr 1967: 71: “Hermeticism was propagated by the Sabaeans [sic] who made known to the Islamic world the writings that were attributed to Hermes.” Pingree 1968: 10 posited that Abu- Sahl ibn Nawbaxt’s account of the Babylonian Hermes who became king of Egypt was due to direct or indirect Harrānian infl uence (this is discussed in chapter 2).

Background

Harrānian Sābians have often been described as Hermetists. Although there has been no concerted study of the Arabic works of Hermes themselves to establish this idea with certainty, nevertheless several early Arabic reports appear, at least at fi rst glance, to suggest that some Harrānians did have works of Hermes at their disposal. Before scrutinizing the evidence for this in the primary sources, it is instructive to recall an ingenious account suggested by Walter Scott in the fi rst volume of his edi-tion of the Greek and Latin Hermetica. With an understanding of the history of Islamic philosophy that, he said, was based on the (now much-antiquated) works of T. J. de Boer and B. Carra de Vaux,74 he indulged in what he admitted to be specula-tion about the Hermetica. The scene of his story is set against the rise of a supposed Islamic hostility to “freedom of thought” in which Sābians would not have been able to keep their beliefs and practices:

Now the time at which the Sabians disappear at Bagdad (c. a.d. 1050) is just about the time at which documents of the Corpus Hermeticum, after an interval of fi ve centuries during which nothing was heard of them in Europe, reappear at Constantinople, in the hands of Psellus. Is there not something more than chance in this? It may be that one of the Sabians of Bagdad, fi nd-ing that his position under Moslem rule was becoming unendurable, migrated to Constantinople, and brought in his baggage a bundle of Greek Hermetica—and that our Corpus is that bundle. If so, the line along which the libelli of the Corpus have been transmitted runs through Harran and Bagdad. This is merely an unproved hypothesis; but it is one that agrees well with the facts known to us. The Pagans of Harran almost certainly possessed the whole collection of Hermetica (including many documents that are not now extant) in Greek, at the time when they adopted these writings as their Scriptures, in a.d. 830; and there can be little doubt that Thabit, who was a good Greek scholar, still had a copy of them in Greek at the end of the ninth century. During the 150 years which had since elapsed, knowledge of Greek must have almost, if not quite, died out at Bagdad, and the Hermetica must have been now read only, or almost only, in Syriac or Arabic translations. But a man such as the Sabian I am supposing would, even if he did not himself know the Greek language, have good reason to preserve with care, and to take with him when he migrated to a place where Greek was spoken, any portions of his Scriptures, in the original Greek, that had chanced to escape destruc-tion and to come into his hands; and it is just such a chance collection of specimens that survive in the Corpus.

Moreover, if we choose to indulge in further conjectures, there is nothing to prevent us from supposing that it was the arrival in Constantinople of a few such Sabian Neoplatonists from Bagdad, and the writings brought with

74. De Boer 1901, Carra de Vaux 1900 and 1902.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

them, that fi rst started that revival of Platonic study in which Psellus took the leading part.75

Scott added that “[i]t is almost surprising that no extracts or quotations from the Hermetica . . . have been found in Arabic writings.”76 Unfortunately, there is no evi-dence for any of this. To his great credit, Scott sought very diligently to fi nd parallels between the Greek Corpus Hermeticum and Arabic texts known to him in transla-tions in European languages. The result of his investigations, his collection of Arabic testimonia on Hermes, completed by A. S. Ferguson, is still unmatched and very valuable. Scott’s speculation, however, also shows how histories of Arabic philoso-phy such as de Boer’s have misled scholars to think that there was an orthodox Islamic persecution of philosophers, which is not exactly correct.77 Indeed, this is the very period when philosophers in the Graeco-Arabic tradition such as Ibn Sīnā,al-Bīrūnī, Ibn al-HayTam, and Ibn Rid. wān were fl ourishing under different Muslim rulers in many lands. Why would a pagan at that time think that he would be more welcome, and fi nd greater “freedom of thought,” in Byzantium of all places?

Scott’s surmise also shows how ready historians have been to assume, with little evidence, that the Harrānians possessed a substantial Hermetic literature. In this case, even the Greek Hermetica have been imagined as a part of a Harrānian legacy. Although this is not impossible, there simply is no positive evidence for it. The Harrānians can easily be made into secret agents or scapegoats of intellectual history (as with the Tardieu hypothesis) precisely because so little is known about them. In his valuable studies on the ninth-century astrologer Abu- Ma<šar, David Pingree developed the theory that “the immediate sources of Abu- Ma<shar’s Aristotelianism were not the Arabic translations of the De Caelo, the Physica, and the De generatione et corruptione, but the purported writings of the Harrānian prophets, Hermes and Agathodaimon.”78 Pingree’s argument for the infl uence of the Harrānians on Abu-

Ma<šar is as follows:

Since the Harrānians were interested in the laws of perceptible nature pre-cisely because they saw the same relationships between the ethereal spheres and the sublunar world of change that Abu- Ma<shar seeks to prove (as well as a further relationship between the ethereal spheres and the One which Abu-

Ma<shar only hints at), it is an easy step to the conclusion that this justifi ca-tion of astrology is, in its main outline, taken by Abu- Ma<shar from the books of the Harrānians, and is thus only part of a much more elaborate universal philosophy of emanation.79

75. Scott 1.108–109.76. Idem, 109.77. For fuller criticisms of this work and others like it, see Gutas 2002: 8–12.78. Pingree, “Abu- Ma<shar,” DSB 1.33b.79. Ibidem. Another argument of Pingree for the Harrānians’ infl uence on Abu- Ma<šar is discussed

critically in the appendix to this chapter.

Background

Beginning with this assumption, Pingree then proceeded to outline what he thought Harrānian cosmology was.80 However, the infl uence of the Harrānians on Abu-

Ma<šar is far from proven. First we must ask, with Hjärpe, which Harrānians could have been responsible for this infl uence: Harrānians of Harrān itself or of Baġdād?Second, what Harrānian writings do we possess that could demonstrate this infl u-ence? Third, where does Abu- Ma<šar show his dependence on these works? The answer to the fi rst question is likely to be Sābians at Baġdād, perhaps specifi cally §ābit, as Hjärpe advised, in which case their cosmology may bear no real resem-blance to that of the “traditional” Harrānians, and may have much more to do with the science of classical authors such as Ptolemy or other astrologers, whose works §ābit was translating, studying, and applying. As for the second question, there are no extant cosmological works, and indeed very few works of any kind, defi nitely identifi ed as concerned with Harrānian Sābian religion and belief, so their infl uence cannot yet be determined.81 As for Abu- Ma<šar’s dependence on Harrānian doc-trines, there is very little evidence. Al-Bı-ru-nı- tells us of an otherwise unknown work of Abu- Ma<šar called On Houses of Worship, in which he dealt with the ancient tem-ples of the Harrānians and other pagans;82 in fact, this appears to be a section of Abu- Ma<šar’s lost Book of the Thousands, not a work in which a Sābian cosmology is likely to have been described.83 Also, a Greek translation of one of Abu- Ma<šar’s works cites the Harrānians as an authority on prognostications based on the annual

80. He did the same in his article “Abu- Ma<šar,” EIr 1.337b–340a (in a fascicle dated 1983): “(Abu--Ma<šar’s) astrological theories, though derived from . . . diverse sources, were founded upon that Neoplatonizing concept of the universe associated with the self-styled Sabeans of Harrān. They hypothesized three levels of being analogous to three concentric spheres: the divine (the sphere of light), the ethereal (the celestial spheres), and the hylic (the sublunar core . . . ). The sciences of astrology and theurgy are, in the system, the most useful to man . . . ” But where do we fi nd these Harrāniandoctrines explained by Abu- Ma<šar as Harrānian?

Later in the same article he adds, “Of less importance, but present, are some writings on the talismans used in theurgy and on the planetary temples in which was performed the liturgy of the Harranians [without diacritics now]. Abu- Ma<šar asserted that the Sabean astrological religion was the original and true belief taught to the earliest man by God.” Which writings are these, and where do they mention Harrānians? It seems more likely that Pingree was thinking of Arabic books attributed to Hermes, some of which Abu- Ma<šar surely read. Even then, although Pingree studied some of the Arabic Hermetica in manuscript, his case is not based on published material or indeed any cited manuscript evidence.

81. Chwolsohn’s survey was limited to the titles of books of Harrānians, the passages from the Fihrist that allegedly came from one of the books of the Harrānians, and the important passage cited by Bar <Ebrāyā (Ibn al-<Ibrı-) in his Syriac Chronicle (Chwolsohn 1856, vol. 2). An important contribution to the literature of Harrānian Sābians is found in Rosenthal 1962, who presents two fragmentary apocalypses. Beyond that, nothing else is known for certain. Some of the Arabic Hermetica present a possible Harrānian corpus, but whether these are actually Harrānian or forgeries of works as Sābian(pagan, as imagined in the ninth or tenth century) remains to be seen in future studies.

82. al-Bı-ru-nı-, ATār, 205.15–20, trans. 187.32–42. See also Pingree 2002: 26–29, arguing—I think correctly—that al-Mas<u-dı- repeated more information from this lost work of Abu- Ma<šar.

83. As-Sigzı-’s Muntaxab of Abu- Ma<šar’s Book of the Thousands mentions that the original work explained “the construction of the great, renowned, famous buildings” (binā> al-abniya al-<azīmaal-maDku-ra al-mašhu-ra) in terms of historical astrology (British Library Or. 1346, 81 recto 29).

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

heliacal rising of Sirius.84 These references are far from suffi cient to demonstrate that Abu- Ma<šar adopted a Harrānian cosmology. Abu- Ma<šar’s student ŠāDān listed a Book of the Harrānian in a bibliography of works belonging to Abu- Ma<šar. Again, there is no special reason to think that this work was devoted to explaining a sup-posed system of S ābian cosmology.85 In short, the elaboration of a Harrānian cos-mology on the basis of Abu- Ma<šar’s writings, or those of any other, is premature.86

Such a Harrānian infl uence, carefully qualifi ed, may eventually be proven in the case of fi gures such as Abu- Ma<šar, and then this view may be vindicated, but, for the moment, the evidence for the alleged infl uence is too slender for such far-reaching conclusions.

3.4 The Evidence for a H. arranian S. abian Transmission of the Hermetica

What, then, is the evidence in primary sources for the Harrānian Sābian transmis-sion of the Arabic Hermetica? There are several indications, but most of them do not permit us yet to identify existing Arabic Hermetica as being of Harrānian prov-enance. What follows here is an analysis of these pieces of evidence, in chronological order, and an evaluation of their collective meaning for the question of the alleged Harrānian Sābian Hermetica.

3.4.1 Evidence from a Syriac Antipagan Christian Polemic ca 600 ce

In 1983 Sebastian Brock published the edition and translation of a Syriac work, enti-tled Prophecies of the Pagan Philosophers (Nbîyawwātâ d-pillôsôpê hanpê), addressed to the “unbaptized Harrānians,” which argues that the statements of philosophers esteemed by the Harrānians actually prophesied the truth of Christianity, and there-fore that the Harrānians should convert; for if they disbelieved these prophecies, they disbelieved their own teachers, but if they believed them, they believed the truth of Christianity.87 Brock convincingly dated this Syriac text to the late sixth or early seventh century and suggested that it could have been a part of the brutal ini-tiative ordered by emperor Maurice (r. 582–602) to convert the Harrānians, known from a report handed down by the Chronicle of Michael the Elder (d. 1199) and the

84. CCAG 4.124–125. Prognostications on the rising of Sirius were a part of the folklore of most peoples of the ancient Near East and also in other parts of the world. They also formed the subject of one of the most popular Arabic texts attributed to Hermes, Kitāb Ahkām <inda tulu-< aš-Ši<rā l-yamā-nīya (KŠY).

85. Rosenthal 1963: 456. Rosenthal’s prudent comment was, “As usual, the ascription of a given work to a Harrānian allows of no plausible identifi cation.” The great majority of §ābit’s works have nothing to do with especially S ābian matters; see Gutas, forthcoming. Given the context of the report, one would expect the Book of the Harrānian to be a work of astrology.

86. See also the appendix to this chapter.87. Brock 1983.

Background

Chronicle ad annum 1234.88 It is evidence in some way for pagan Harrānians’ views as understood by a Christian polemicist at the time of Muhammad and the advent of Islam, showing that the Harrānians were supposed to respect the views of the Greek philosophers.

Included in its collected pagan sayings are a few passages attributed by name to Hermes Trismegistus. Brock showed that these quotations of Hermes derived from a source held in common with the sixth-century Greek chronicler Malalas of Antioch, and that this common source in turn probably derived these sayings from the extant work known as the Greek Theosophia or the “Tübingen Theosophy,” which was written in the second half of the fourth century. Cyril of Alexandria also cited some of the same passages. Clearly a study of the complicated interrelation-ships of these sources is needed.89 In any case, these quotations attributed to Hermes in the Prophecies of the Pagan Philosophers themselves do not refer directly to any text of the surviving Greek Corpus Hermeticum. The only clue directly indicating a known Hermetic text in this collection is a reference not to Hermes, but to Poimandres, a name otherwise known only at the beginning of the Greek Corpus Hermeticum, in the very title of CH 1. Under the heading Poimandres, however, the Prophecies of the Pagan Philosophers cites CH 13.1–2 (not CH 1). As Garth Fowden has pointed out, this is interesting evidence for the collection of the extant Greek Hermetica together, with the so-called Poimandres at the beginning.90 Evidently the name Poimandres was already generalized to refer to the whole collection, and it was thought to be relevant for pagans in Syria around the year 600.

The existence of these few passages in a work against the pagans of Harrān gives us evidence that Hermes was considered to be important for the Harrānians, although only as one name of authority among the other ancient philosophers. The occurrence of the sayings of Hermes here does not make the Harrānians “Hermetists,” or even show that they defi nitely had Hermetic books among them. The text shows merely that the Harrānians were regarded as being like other pagans of late antiq-uity, and that their particular religion was seen as part of the greater legacy of Hellenic paganism. In the same way, the pagan Greek Anthology of Stobaeus (early fi fth century) could cite Hermetic works extensively, among citations of ancient Hellenic philosophers, without being described as “Hermetic” in character. The Prophecies of the Pagan Philosophers also cites Plato, Porphyry, Plotinus, Pythagoras, Orpheus, the local fi gure Bābā, and others. Given the character of these citations, as Edward Watts has remarked, “There is also no evident expectation that (the) Harrā-nian audience would have any signifi cant Platonic background” in education.”91

The text thus shows not that the Harrānians defi nitely had a copy of the Greek

88. Brock 1983: 207–209.89. Brock 1983: 206–207.90. Fowden 1993a: 34.91. Watts 2005: 313–314.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

Corpus Hermeticum, but only that they were expected to view Hermetica with the same high regard as they would the works of other pagan sages.92 It is true that they may have possessed parts of what is today the Greek Corpus Hermeticum, but they equally may not have.

3.4.2 Evidence from Theodore Abu- Qurra, Bishop of Harrān(fl . ca 805–829)

The next association of Hermes with the Harrānians comes more than two hun-dred years later, long after the establishment of the Arab empire. This is a great gap of time, during which one cannot suppose that the Harrānian pagans’ way of life stayed the same. Little is known about Theodore Abu- Qurra except that he was Chalcedonian bishop of Harrān for some time until he was deposed around 813.Thereafter he remained an important theologian in Syria, taking part in intercon-fessional debate and writing works to prove the truth of his religion. He translated pseudo- Aristotle’s De virtutibus animae for Tāhir ibn al-Husayn, governor of Mesopotamia (r. 813–820), and may have engaged in a theological debate in the presence of al-Ma>mu-n in 829. He is one of the fi rst Christians to write in Arabic whose works survive.93

In one book he describes briefl y the followers of “the religion of the ancient pagans” (dīn al-hunafā> al-awwalīn).94 This comes fi rst in a series of descriptions of different religions, remarkable for their even-handed treatment, lacking overtly polemical terms. Because Theodore was at one time the bishop of Harrān, he can be assumed to possess some true information about the pagans there: “They claimed that they worship the seven planets—the sun, the moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, Mercury, Venus—and the twelve zodiacal houses, because they are the ones that create and govern this creation and give good fortune and prosperity in the lower world (ad-dunyā), and ill fortune and suffering. They said that their prophet in that is Hermes the Sage (al-hakīm).”95 Although this description does not men-tion the city of Harrān by name, its similarity to later descriptions of the Harrā-nians, combined with the fact that Theodore was once bishop of Harrān, can leave hardly any doubt about the identity of these people. The passage is therefore the earliest known description of the religion of the Harrānian pagans in Arabic, ante-dating their adoption of the name Sābi>a as well as the arrival of the infl uential

92. Hadot 2007: 80–81, esp. 81n130, takes a confl icting view based on the same lack of information: she seems to think that because it is not sound to guess the philosophical competence of the audience on the basis of the text’s contents, this is no impediment to her greater argument that the audience in Harrān might include real and well-educated Neoplatonic philosophers, in fact an entire academy of them.

93. For this information, see Lamoreaux 2005: xi–xviii; see also Graf 1944–1953: 2.7–26.94. Hunafā> (sing. hanīf ) is a term that evolved in complicated ways in Arabic, which I will discuss

in more detail below. For now, suffi ce it to say that Christians used the word in Arabic as an equivalent to the related Aramaic word hanpā, meaning just “pagan,” as shown by de Blois 2002: 19–20.

95. Theodore Abu- Qurra 1982: 200.8–201.1; cf. Lamoreaux 2005: 1.

Background

§ābit in Baġdād.96 It is also the earliest known association in Arabic of Hermes with Harrān, where Hermes is explicitly called their prophet “in that,” meaning their prophet in the matter of the planets and the zodiac (inna nabīyahum fīDālika Hirmisu l-hakīm).

Later in the same work Theodore claims, as a part of his argument, that every religious community has received a messenger, and that one of these messengers must be the true messenger. For his argument, the pagans needed a prophet to give their religion a status comparable to that of Christianity, Judaism, Manichaeism, and Islam. One might therefore suppose that it was Christians like Theodore who imagined Hermes to be the “prophet” of the pagans in order to make all the reli-gions systematically similar enough so that his argument would work neatly. On the other hand, one might also imagine pagans in Harrān claiming defensively, against members of other religions, that they, too, had a messenger, and resorting to Hermes as the oldest and fi rst. As I will show in chapter 4, some late antique Christian chronicles placed Hermes in the primordial times before the Flood, making him earlier even than Moses. The claim to chronological priority might have had its appeal to pagans of Harrān, who could have made Hermes into their prophet for just that reason.

In Theodore’s view, apostles and prophets brought books,97 so he probably con-sidered one or more books of Hermes as the source of their teaching. Theodore says specifi cally that Hermes was their prophet “in that.” “That” might refer to their wor-ship of the planets, or rather merely to the justifi cation of their worship of the plan-ets, the view that the planets bestow good and bad fortune. In the latter case, any astrological work attributed to Hermes would suffi ce. It is impossible to know for certain what Theodore meant exactly, but his description of the pagans is an impor-tant one. It is the fi rst known reference in Arabic to Hermes as a prophet of the Harrānians. The characterization of the Harrānian pagan religion as particularly astral appears regularly in Arabic accounts from this time onward, including a later pagan’s own implicit account.98 The next time that the sources offer a description of the Harrānian religion, it is under the name Sābian and shows signs of involvement with the currents of ancient Greek philosophy that characterized Arabic literature in the ninth century.

3.4.3 Evidence from al-Kindī (d. ca 870), Ibn al-Qiftī (d. 1248), and Ibn al-<Ibrī (d. 1286)

The most important testimony about the possible existence of books of Hermes possibly connected with the Harrānians is from al-Kindı-, “the fi rst philosopher of the Arabs,” related in a work by his student as-Saraxsı- (d. 899), a tutor of the caliph

96. Theodore’s description of the pagans may even antedate §ābit’s birth in or around 826. 97. Theodore Abu- Qurra 1982: 211.12–212.2. 98. See the ġazal of Abu- Ishāq Ibrāhı-m as-Sābi> in section 3.5.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

al-Mu<tad. id. A long passage from as-Saraxsı-’s treatise entitled Description of the Doctrines of the Sābians (Risāla fī Wasf maDāhib as-S ābi>īn), describing the Harrā-nian sect on the authority of al-Kindı- (<an al-Kindī), survives in citation by an-Nadı-m(wr. 987), who himself read the work in as-Saraxsı-’s own handwriting.99 It is impor-tant to note that this information must belong to al-Kindı-’s time, the middle of the ninth century, only about a generation after the Harrānians are said to have adopted the name S ābian. The religion described is called that of the “Harrā-nian Chaldaeans known as Sābians” (al-Harnānīya al-Kaldānīyīn al-ma<ru-fīn bi-s-Sābi>a) and al-hanīfīya, or “paganism.”100

Modern scholars have used the description of the Harrānian religion given in this text as one of the basic sources for their beliefs and practices. As several have remarked, however, the Harrānian system is described in strikingly Islamic terms.101

For example, the Harrānians pray according to a fi xed number of bowings and prostrations (raka<āt and sugu-dāt) toward a particular direction (qibla) at specifi c times of the day reckoned by the position of the sun. They have three supereroga-tory prayers “corresponding to the witr of the Muslims,” an explicit likening of the Harrā-nian religion to Islam.102 The Harrānians have a fast (sawm) of thirty days, as well as special days of fast, they have a feast at the end of their fast called <Id fi tr,which one may suppose came at the end of their month of fasting (like the feast of the same name at the end of Ramad. ān for the Muslims), and they wash themselves after ritual pollution.103 In all of these areas of the description, the Harrānian reli-gion seems quite like Islam. Although there are considerable differences between the two in the theoretical domain, as described by as-Saraxsı-, the numerous remarkable similarities require some explanation. It must be either that as-Saraxsı-, al-Kindı-, or their source consciously portrayed the Harrānian religion in Islamic terms, invent-ing religious practices that did not in fact exist at that time, or that the Harrānianswho informed al-Kindı- deliberately developed practices like those of the Muslims or deliberately described them that way. Because there would be no apparent motive

99. The treatise is reported in the Fihrist 321.14 (Rosenthal 1943: 40). The whole passage (Fihrist383.7–385.2; ed. Flügel 318.14–320.9) is given in annotated English translation by Rosenthal 1943: 41–51,in comparison with the two abridgements made by al-Mutahhar al-Maqdisı- (writing in 966). Rosenthal also noted later (“al-Sarakhsı-,” EI2, 9.35a–36a) that another fragment of this is given by <Abdalgabbār, Muġnī 5.152.

100. For more on the term hanīf, see section 5.2. Ibn al-<Ibrı-, Ta>rīx, 153, summarizes this passage from as-Saraxsı- in his historical entry on §ābit ibn Qurra, saying, “What I have ascertained about the doctrine of the Sābians is that they preach precisely what the ancient Chaldaeans preached” (annada<watahum hiya da<watu l-Kaldānīyīna l-qudamā> bi-<aynihā). The very next report in his history concerns as-Saraxsı- himself. We may suspect therefore that as-Saraxsı- was his source, directly or indirectly, though he does not name him as the author from whom he took the previous passage.

101. Pines 1970: 787, Hjärpe 1972: 40–42, Levy-Rubin 2003: 215–216, and Lane Fox 2005: 234 (citing F. Zimmerman). Levy-Rubin points out that the Andalusian scholar Ibn Hazm (d. 1064) noted the similarity of the “S ābian” practices to those of Islam.

102. Rosenthal 1943: 43–44.103. Rosenthal 1943: 46–47.

Background

for Muslims to portray Harrānians in such terms, whereas Harrānians would surely have had reason to do so, the latter appears to be the only real possibility.104

The Harrānian view of the world as described in this report is based entirely on Aristotelian philosophy (not, signifi cantly, on works of Plato or any Neoplatonist). Their views on various subjects were said to correspond to those found in Aristotle’s books, including the following: Physics, De caelo, De generatione et corruptione,Meteorologia, De sensu et sensato, Metaphysics, and Posterior Analytics. Perhaps the queries of the philosopher al-Kindı- into the religion of the Harrānians elicited these sorts of responses from an accommodating informant eager to please him.105 Yet because we can be sure that the Harrānian religion was assimilated to Islam, the élite religion in Baġdādı- society, insofar as it was described with specifi cally Islamic terms, it is also likely that the Harrānians claimed the most prestigious philosophi-cal system of the ninth century, the system that so many scholars of that time, including §ābit of Harrān himself, were engaged in recovering through translation, study, and commentary, as their own.106 It must have been obvious, and obviously advantageous, for pagans to claim the ancient pagan philosophers as a part of their heritage.

The Harrānian Sābians are thus portrayed in terms that would have been highly appealing to many Muslim intellectuals of the ninth century. In fact, al-Kindı-’s description makes them seem like nothing other than Aristotelian Muslims with special astrological interests, and this is perhaps the main point of his description. Such a picture can have derived only from a deliberate attempt to make the Harrā-nian religion as acceptable as possible to the élite of the Caliphs’ capital in that

104. Hjärpe 1972: 40–42 argued that this was not at all due to a “fraude consciente,” but rather the natural change that the Harrānian religion would undergo in the environment of Baġdād, dominated by Muslim culture. Although Hjärpe’s arguments are strong, I fi nd it hard to believe that such changes could have come about so quickly that already al-Kindı- could report them, unless there had been a conscious effort on the part of Harrānian informants to make their religion more acceptable to Muslims. Strohmaier’s suggestion (1996: 54), that the similarity of the two religions might be accounted for by supposing that it was Muhammad who imitated the practice of the Harrānian pagans, cannot be accepted.

105. Rowson 1988: 242 pointed out the similarity between the list of works said here to be authorita-tive among the Sābians and a similar list at the end of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Kitāb at-Tuffāha (Latin Depomo) (in reality an adaptation of the Phaedo of Plato: Gutas 1986: 31); the latter list also included works of Aristotle and the “Book of Hermes” where knowledge of the principles, usu-l, is to be sought. This led D. S. Margoliouth 1892: 190 to suppose that a Harrānian Sābian wrote the De pomo. On this see Gutas 1988: 45–46n39. I discuss the Kitāb at-Tuffāha, and its references to Hermes, in chapter 5.

106. This would mean that al-Kindı-’s description of the Harrānians could not be used as evidence for a Platonic school in Harrān in the sixth century. Most recently Pingree 2002: 15 argued in favor of Tardieu’s view on the matter, adding, “The S ābians before Thābit almost never translated Aristotle’s works into either Syriac or Arabic, though they used them in composing their own treatises in those two languages.” Where does this information come from? For there are no books known for certain as both Harrānian and Sābian extant in either Syriac or Arabic, from before the time of §ābit, citing the works of Aristotle listed by al-Kindı-.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

period. The survival of the Harrānian Sābian family of §ābit in the court of Baġdādfor so long testifi es to the degree to which they succeeded in doing so. Given that as-Saraxsı- corresponded at some point with the Harrānian §ābit ibn Qurra, it is likely that §ābit himself was a source for both al-Kindı- and as-Saraxsı-.107

Like Theodore Abu- Qurra, this passage says that Hermes (Hrmys) was one of the Harrānian S ābians’ famed luminaries; here Hermes is not specifi cally a prophet, and he is listed together with Agathodaemon, a mysterious fi gure called >r>ny, and Solon.108 But new information about an actual work of Hermes appears at the end of the extract from as-Saraxsı- in the Fihrist, credited explicitly to al-Kindı-: “Al-Kindı- said that he examined a book which that people [the Harrā-nians] regard as authoritative. It is Chapters of Hermes on the Doctrine of God’s Unity which he wrote for his son most expertly on God’s unity.109 Philosophers who have exerted themselves will fi nd no alternative to them and to professing their doctrine.”110 Modern scholars have appropriately tried to guess which books these might have been. Chwolsohn suggested that this book was the same as the Syriac work mentioned by Ibn al-<Ibrı- in his Arabic chronicle (discussed below) and that it could be the Greek Corpus Hermeticum itself.111 Scott suggested that these treatises could have been the Cemijo≠ kæcoi (General Discourses) known from internal references in the Greek Hermetica themselves or the Dienodijo≠ kæcoi

(Detailed Discourses) mentioned by Cyril of Alexandria along with the Cemijo≠

kæcoi.112 The Arabic word used, maqālāt, can refer to individual treatises or sec-tions of a book, like chapters, again calling to mind the collected treatises of the

107. As-Saraxsı- and §ābit almost certainly knew each other in person. An-Nadim (Fihrist 321.12–13)attributes to as-Saraxsı- a “Book of his correspondence in answering to §ābit ibn Qurra the questions he was asked about” (Kitāb Risālatihī fī gawāb §ābit ibn Qurra fīmā su>ila <anhu). Ibn al-Qiftı-, 118.4,mentions §ābit’s answer to a Kitāb of as-Saraxsı-. It is unclear which of these is prior to the other. In another recorded anecdote, §ābit tutored, and became a close friend of, the future caliph al-Mu<tad. idwhen the latter was under house arrest; al-Mu<tad. id was also at some time as-Saraxsı-’s student. In such circumstances the two scholars can be assumed to have known each other quite well (Ibn Abı- Usaybi<a1.216.5–13; cf. Rosenthal 1943: 22–23 and 103–104n234).

108. Fihrist 383.12–13. For more on Urānı-, see section 5.3.109. At-tawhīd, strictly meaning monotheism or unity of God, is often a synonym for (Islamic)

theology (cf. Gardet, “<Ilm al-Kalām,” EI2, 3.1141b–1150b). It is possible that the title of the work is to be construed Chapters of Hermes on (Monotheistic) Theology Which He Wrote for His Son Most Expertly on Theology. Compare some of the titles of sections in the extant Greek Corpus Hermeticum that bear similar long descriptions in their headings.

110. Fihrist 385.1–2 (Flügel 320.7–9): qāla l-Kindīyu innahu- nazara fī kitābin yuqirru bihī hā>ulā>il-qawmu wa-huwa l-maqālātu li-Hirmisa fī t-tawhīdi katabahu- li-bnihī <alā ġāyatin mina t-taqānati fīt-tawhīdi lā yagidu l-faylasu-fu iDā at<aba nafsahu- mandu-hatan <anhu wa-l-qawli bihā. The English translation is mine; I have consulted the previous English translations by Rosenthal 1943: 51 and Dodge 1970: 2.750, and the German translation by Chwolsohn 1856: 2.13–14.

111. Chwolsohn 1856: 2.126. Chwolsohn apparently knew the Greek Corpus Hermeticum by the name Poemander, properly the title only of the fi rst treatise in the Corpus.

112. Scott 4.250n2; Cyril Contra Julianum 553A, 588B; CH 10.1, 10.7, 13.1; SH 3.1, 6.1; Mahé 1984 B.6.For a bibliography of views on these “General Discourses,” see Copenhaver 1992: 155. For a discussion of possible uses of the General Discourses in their original context, see also Fowden 1993a: 97–99.

Background

Greek Corpus Hermeticum.113 Because there is no reason to doubt the testimony of al-Kindı-, one can assume that in the ninth century he had obtained a work attrib-uted to Hermes in Arabic (the only language he could read). Interestingly, al-Kindı-

does not say that this text is of Harrānian origin, even though he could have just as easily said so. Instead he claims merely that they consider it authoritative (yuq-irru bihī). Al-Kindı- or one of his associates could have come across such a book anywhere in the search for ancient Greek manuscripts to be translated. In order to learn that the book was authoritative among the Harrānian S ābians, all that al-Kindı- would need to do is to ask §ābit or another Harrānian about the ancient work of Hermes he had obtained. They would presumably have no reason to reject an ancient work of their prophet.

What is practically certain is that al-Kindı- had before him either a text from the known Greek Hermetica or something related to them, a text from Hermes to his son on a theological subject.114 In conclusion, al-Kindı-’s testimony alone suffi ces to indicate that a translation of the Greek Corpus or a text related to it was available in Arabic in the ninth century. Depending on how one interprets al-Kindı-’s words, however, the Hermetic work in question may not have had any special status in Harrān. It could have been acquired anywhere, and any Harrānian, considering Hermes to be his prophet, might have declared it authoritative upon al-Kindı-’s inquiry. Then again, it is possible to speculate that al-Kindı- did indeed receive the book from a Harrānian. We simply do not have any way of knowing. In any case, it is not surprising that such treatises do not survive today. The absence of other refer-ences to such works in Arabic literature probably means that these Hermetica did not fi nd the audience that al-Kindı- had thought they deserved, and that they were lost in Arabic at an early stage, along with so much other Arabic literature of the ninth century.115 Although the existence of this testimony does not justify exagger-ated talk about the infl uence of “Hermetism” in Arabic, it does, however, entirely warrant studies like that of Charles Genequand comparing the Corpus Hermeticumand al-Kindı-’s Fī n-nafs.116

113. In the ninth century, maqāla is documented as translating a variety of words for book, treatise,or chapter: bibk¨om, Õpælmgla, r ccqalla, and cq�lla (in the sense of chapter heading) (Ullmann 2002–2007: 1.163 and 185, S2:356 and 553).

114. A new Hermetic discourse from Hermes to his son was discovered in Coptic translation among the Nag< Hammādı- texts (i.e., Nag< Hammādı- VI.6, The Ogdoad Reveals the Ennead). This, along with the fragmentary state of the Greek Corpus, proves that the Greek collection is incomplete.

115. For a list of titles of lost early Arabic works (including a work attributed to Hermes) serving as examples of how “our bibliographical information of the older period—that is, the early ninth century—is still quite incomplete,” see Rosenthal 1963: 454–456.

116. Genequand 1987–1988. Unfortunately, he found only one real parallel passage between the Corpus Hermeticum and al-Kindı-’s Fī n-nafs, and that parallel does not prove direct borrowing or infl uence. The shortcoming of Genequand’s useful study is rooted in its attempt to connect al-Kindı-’s treatise on the soul mostly with general intellectual tendencies poorly defi ned rather than specifi c works (cf. his note 40, p. 11: “It is not always possible to establish clear-cut distinctions between Platonism, Hermetism, and some forms of Gnosis.”) Similarities between al-Kindı-’s psychology and the

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

Much later, in the thirteenth century, the testimony of Ibn al-Qiftı- gives a simi-lar and more detailed report on the existence of Eastern versions of the texts of the Greek Corpus Hermeticum or texts similar to them. He wrote, “Portions of his [i.e., the third Hermes’]117 scrolls have been translated. They are part of his chap-ters to his disciple Tātı- by way of question and answer between the two. They lack organization and continuity because the original was decayed and divided into separate parts.”118 Tat is familiar from the Greek Corpus Hermeticum as the most frequently mentioned disciple of Hermes Trismegistus. In the Greek discourses, Tat addressed Hermes as father and Hermes addressed Tat as his child.119 Evidently, then, this also is a reference to texts like the Greek Corpus Hermeticum, a collec-tion of texts known to us in Greek in a somewhat tattered form that could be described accurately by Ibn al-Qiftı-’s words. Ibn al-Qiftı- is probably citing an earlier author, one of many from whom he compiled his own work. When Ibn al-<Ibrı- copied this passage verbatim from Ibn al-Qiftı- in his discussion of Hermes (in this case, referring to the fi rst Hermes), he added tantalizingly, “The manu-script is extant with us in Syriac.”120 This might be taken to imply also that Ibn al-<Ibrı- did not think it survived in Arabic.

Neither Ibn al-Qiftı- nor Ibn al-<Ibrı- mentions the Sābians or the Harrānians in connection with this text. They bring it up only in their short biographies of Hermes. Syriac, however, was the language not only of Christians but also of the pagans of Harrān and of the early Harrānians of Baġdād.121 Hermetic discourses in Syriac might be due either to the Harrānian Sābians or to Christians; there is no way to be certain. Ibn al-<Ibrı- was able to list some of the Syriac works allegedly by §ābit ibn Qurra in his Syriac Chronicle, and even to cite a Syriac passage from one of them as an example of §ābit’s eloquence. On the other hand, there is prec-edent for Christian Syriac authors taking an interest in the Hermetica for their apologetic purposes.122 One may assume that al-Kindı-’s copy of the discourses of Hermes was translated from a Syriac version; if so, this would suggest that Ibn al-<Ibrı-’s copy might also be of Harrānian origin. Unfortunately, there is no more

Greek Hermetica are demonstrated, but no direct or defi nite connection is established through this method. Adamson 2000: 112–119 and 2002: 193–197 show numerous parallels rather between al-Kindı-’s psychology and the Plotinian Theology of Aristotle. For an early effort like that of Genequand, but involving different Arabic philosophers, see Affi fi 1951.

117. On the three Hermeses, see chapter 4.118. Ibn al-Qiftı-, 349.23–350.2: wa-nuqilat min suhufi hī nubaDun wa-hiya min maqālātihī ilā

tilmīDihī Tātī <alā sabīli su>ālin wa-gawābin baynahumā wa-hiya <alā ġayri nizāmin wa-wilā>in li-anna l-asla kāna bāliyan mufarraqatan.

119. For example, in CH 10 passim.120. Ibn al-<Ibrı-, Ta>rīx, 12.1–3, adding the words wa-n-nusxa mawgu-datun <indanā bi-s-suryānīya.121. I know of no good indication of when Syriac ceased to be used by the Harrānians in Baġdād.122. For example, Jacob of Edessa in his Hexaemeron, who considered the words of Hermes to be

in accord with Christianity, although he apparently knew Hermetic passages only through Cyril of Alexandria’s Contra Julianum (Jacob of Edessa, Hexaemeron, 149b11–150a17; cf. CH 4.148–141, frag. 32).

Background

evidence than this concerning these collections of Hermetica. Rather than specu-lating further, it would be wiser to accept the evidence for what it is and to keep the possibilities in mind. Even though these reports of dialogues between Hermes and Tat do exist in Arabic, there is no trace of them known today nor has any other report about them come to light. Although they surely existed, they must have been rare.

3.4.4 Evidence from Abu- Ma<šar (d. 886), al-Bīru-nī (d. ca 1050), and Others

The famous astrologer Abu- Ma<šar said that the Harrānians claimed the wisdom (hikma) of the fi rst Hermes as their own.123 Abu- Ma<šar’s legend of the three Hermeses was the main source on Hermes for later authors and forms the special subject of chapter 4. In light of al-Kindı-’s contemporary report, discussed above, one may perhaps take this as a reference to Hermetic books among the Harrānians. Similar references are found in many other works after Abu- Ma<šar. An often-cited example appears in the masterpiece of chronological science, the Kitāb al-ATāral-bāqiya of al-Bı-ru-nı-, which quoted Abu- Ma<šar in a discussion of the Harrānians.124 Although Hermes the Egyptian is listed there as one of the proph-ets of the Harrānians, including Agathodaemon, Valens,125 Pythagoras, Solon,126

and Bābā the Harrānian,127 this list does not really give us information about any works of Hermes suspected to have been held among the Harrānians. It shows little more than the Syriac Prophecies of the Pagan Philosophers, discussed above in section 3.4.1, which attributed to the Harrānians a high esteem for several of the same Greek sages.

3.4.5 Evidence from §ābit ibn Qurra (d. 901) or Sinān ibn §ābit(d. 942/943)

§ābit ibn Qurra, the father and chief of the Harrānian Sābians of Baġdād, is recorded to have written several works in Syriac relating to his religion. This is in addition to more than one hundred and fi fty scientifi c and philosophical works that he wrote for a more general learned audience in Arabic. Among the Syriac titles are works dealing with burial, Sābian doctrine, ritual purity, allegorical language, the appropriate and inappropriate animals for sacrifi ce, the times of worship, and the

123. wa-huwa llaDī tadda<ī l-Harrāniyyatu hikmatahu-, Ibn Gulgul, 5.7.124. al-Bı-ru-nı-, ATār, 205.20; trans. 187.44. It is likely that this “book” is actually a chapter of Abu-

Ma<šar’s Kitāb al-Ulu-f, which al-Bı-ru-nı- knew and quoted in his ATār.125. Reported in Sachau’s edition (318.16) as Wālīs, this is Vettius Valens, the astrologer whose work

was translated into Middle Persian and Arabic, where it was highly infl uential.126. Aside from being one of the Seven Sages of ancient Greece, Solon fi gures prominently as the

source of allegedly Egyptian lore, the tale of Atlantis, in Plato’s Timaeus. This may have some bearing on the discussion below on the reports of al-Mas<u-dı-.

127. On Bābā see Rosenthal 1962.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

orthopraxis of prayer. None of these works, doubtless part of §ābit’s own interpre-tation and formulation of the S ābian religion, are known today.128

Two thirteenth-century sources, one Arabic and one Syriac, mention another work entitled The Laws of Hermes and the Prayers that the S ābians Use. Both agree in attributing it to a Sābian of Baġdād, but they disagree about precisely which one. Ibn al-Qiftı- says that the physician Sinān, son of §ābit ibn Qurra, translated into Arabic a work entitled The Laws of Hermes and the Verses and Prayers that the S ā-bians Use in Prayer (Nawāmīs Hirmis wa-s-suwar wa-s-salawāt allatī yusallī bihās-Sābi>u-n).129 Because Ibn al-Qiftı- copied this information from Sinān’s great-grandson, al-Muhassin (d. 1010), who wrote lists of the works of both §ābit and Sinān, we can reasonably expect his information to be correct.130 The list attributes to Sinān several more works also bearing interesting titles, including a history of the kings of the Syrians and a treatise on the historical narratives of his fathers and ancestors.131 These, too, are otherwise unknown today.

This information about Sinān’s translation of The Laws of Hermes would be acceptable without hesitation if it were not for a passage in Ibn al-<Ibrı-’s Syriac Chronicle. Here Ibn al-<Ibrı- lists the titles of the Syriac works of §ābit. He begins with the same titles of Syriac works given by al-Muh assin in Arabic, but adds to them several of the titles of works attributed by al-Muh assin (as cited by Ibn al-Qiftı-)rather to Sinān. The work in question here is entitled in Syriac as The Laws of Hermes and His Prayers that the Pagans Use in Prayer (Ktābā d-nāmose d-Hermīs wa-slawwā-teh hānen da-bhen msalleyn hanpe), corresponding almost exactly with the Arabic title mentioned above and indubitably the same work.132 Ibn al-<Ibrı- lists all of these as works of §ābit and, importantly, he presents them in just the same order as given by al-Muhassin. He prefaces this information by saying, “He (§ābit) wrote in Syriac about sixteen books, the majority of which I have seen and acquired.”133 Therefore he may well be claiming to have a copy of The Laws of Hermes in Syriac, along with many of the others in the same list. Notably he does not say that he actually read these works, nor does he mention Sinān here at all.

Daniel Chwolsohn did not fi nd a discrepancy between the two sources. He con-cluded that the Arabic title listed by Ibn al-Qiftı- refers to Sinān’s translation of a work

128. Ibn al-Qiftı- 120.14–19 = Ibn Abı- Usaybi<a 1.220.25–29.129. Ibn al-Qiftı-, 195.12–13. Wa-naqala ilā l-<Arabī Nawāmīs Hirmis . . . = Ibn Abı- Usaybi<a,

1.224.16–17.130. Ibn al-Qiftı-, 195.6–7 = Ibn Abı- Usaybi<a 1.224.8–9. See also Gutas, forthcoming, “The Works of

§ābit b. Qurra.”131. Ibn al-Qiftı- 195.14 = Ibn Abı- Usaybi<a 1.220.9–10, 15–16.132. Bar <Ebrāyā (Ibn al-<Ibrı-), Syriac Chronicle, trans. Budge 152–153. Note the equivalence of Syriac

hanpe, “pagans,” with Arabic Sābi>a. For a similar example see Gutas 1988, esp. 37–47. Both Syriac hanpeand Arabic Sābi>a were equivalents for Greek Héllenes. On the development of the Aramaic term hanpā and Arabic hanīf, see de Blois 2002: 16–25, summarized in section 5.2.

133. Bar <Ebrāyā (Ibn al-<Ibrı-), Syriac Chronicle, Budge 152, Bodleian MS Hunt. 52 facsimile 55r. b.17–19: akteb ayk 16 ktābe men hānon da-hnan l-sugāhon hzayn wa-qnayn. Cf. trans. Budge 152.

Background

originally composed in Syriac by §ābit, attested by Ibn al-<Ibrı-.134 It appears, however, that Ibn al-<Ibrı-, or his source, has simply added together parts of two different lists deriving from the same earlier source, al-Muh assin. He has mistakenly listed works of Sinān, including The Laws of Hermes, as belonging to his father §ābit. This is confi rmed by his relating them in the same order, something extremely unlikely if he had an inde-pendent source of information (i.e., a list not derived from al-Muh assin). This being the case, we have to regard Ibn al-<Ibrı-’s explicit statement that he knew these “works of §ābit” in Syriac as an exaggeration. Moreover, he, or his source, must have translated the titles of works by Sinān from Arabic into Syriac. The Arabic titles are original.

We are left then with no reason to doubt al-Muhassin’s report, stating that Sināntranslated The Laws of Hermes and the Prayers that the Sābians Use into Arabic—but we still do not know who originally composed it. Although it is conceivable that his father, §ābit, was indeed the original author, and that Ibn al-<Ibrı- and Chwolsohn were fortuitously correct, we just do not know for certain. In any case, Sinān is respon-sible for the Arabic text: he is the interpreter of something supposedly preexisting in another language, that language surely being Syriac. One may therefore accept al-Muhassin’s report (via Ibn al-Qiftı-) as evidence of some kind of pamphlet or book of laws of Hermes among the Sābians of Baġdād in the fi rst half of the tenth century.

Unfortunately, there is no clue as to its contents apart from what the title tells us. Different possibilities occur: it could have been based on older Harrānian traditions or even older Hermetic works, if one wants to posit the existence of such a tradition, but it also might also be entirely Sinān’s independent creation. The limited evidence does not help in deciding. Yet The Laws of Hermes deals with the Sābian religion (their laws and their prayers) and is defi nitely attached to a Sābian of Baġdād in the early tenth century. This strongly suggests that it was part of a self-conscious formulation of S ābianism. That it was translated into Arabic might suggest that it was intended for non-Sābian readers, a possibility to be addressed again later in this work.

3.4.6 Evidence from al-Mubaššir ibn Fātik (wr. 1048/1049)

A description of Hermes and his teachings is preserved in the collection of wise say-ings made by al-Mubaššir ibn Fātik in Fātimid Egypt, Kitāb Muxtār al-hikam. These passages are treated extensively in sections 5.2 and 5.3 in this volume, but a brief sum-mary here will help to make this survey of testimonia about Harrānian Hermetica complete. Al-Mubaššir’s source describes Hermes as a prophet teaching pious com-mandments in the form of maxims, as well as an outline of rules for Hermes’ religion and his wise advice. Although al-Mubaššir’s treatment of Hermes and his instruc-tions includes no direct references to Harrānians or to S ābians in general, the religion taught by Hermes in this account is similar to as-Saraxsı-’s description of the Harrā-nian S ābian religion: it included feasts at astrological conjunctions and at the sun’s entry into a new zodiacal sign, as well as sacrifi cial offerings to the planets at the

134. Chwolsohn 1856: 2.i–v, esp. v, n16.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

appropriate times. Hermes is also said to have commanded them “to perform prayers that he stated for them in ways that he described.” On the other hand, the religious laws of Hermes given here bear close resemblance to Islamic law: they require ritual purity, abstinence from intoxication, gihād against the enemies of the religion, alms (az-zakāt), and prescribe most of the punishments called hadd punishments in Islamic law. All this leads me to conclude that the “religion of Hermes” described here was developed and described well after the establishment of Islam and Islamic law. Again, this analysis will be elaborated in sections 5.2 and 5.3.

Al-Mubaššir relates the wise sayings not only of Hermes, but also those of Tāt imme-diately following. Here one may immediately acknowledge an ancient source for the connection between the two names, Hermes and Tat. It is interesting to note that in one branch of the stemma of the manuscripts of al-Mubaššir’s text, the name Tāt is replaced by Sāb.135 The published text of al-Mubaššir says, “The Lessons of Tāt, who is S āb son of Idrı-s—peace be upon him. The pagans (al-hunafā>) are named for him, so they are called the S ābians (as-Sābi>u-n).”136 Already in 956, al-Mas<u-dı- referred in passing to Sābı-,“for whom the Sābians were named.”137 One section of the teachings of Hermes is made up of his testament to King Ammon, another name associated with Hermes in the ancient Greek Hermetica. The original compiler of these sayings of Hermes and Tat, some time before al-Mubaššir, must have had at least a bit of information—nothing necessarily substantial—derived ultimately from the ancient Greek Hermetica in order to make the association between the names Hermes, King Ammon, and Tat.

Other than the Harrānians, there was no religious community that claimed Hermes as one of its special prophets, and for this and other reasons, to be elabo-rated in section 5.3, I conclude that al-Mubaššir’s life and maxims of Hermes prob-ably derive from a tenth-century Sābian Harrānian living at the court in Baġdād. As the reader will see, I tentatively propose Sinān ibn §ābit or his less well known grandson, Ishāq as -Sābi>, as that author, and The Laws of Hermes (just discussed in section 3.4.5 above) as a candidate for al-Mubaššir’s source.

3.4.7 Evidence from al-Mas<u-dī (d. 956) and the Arabic Reception of Porphyry’s Letter to Anebo and the De mysteriis Aegyptiorum

Al-Mas<u-dı- visited Harrān personally, and therefore Tardieu and those who have followed him have regarded al-Mas<u-dı- as the most important source on the Sā-bians of Harrān.138 One ought to keep in mind, however, that there is no particular

135. Rosenthal’s handwritten notes, 66.136. al-Mubaššir 26.4–5: Adāb Tāt, huwa Sābu bnu Idrīsa <alayhi s-salāmu wa-ilayhi nusiba

l-hunafā>i fa-qīla lahumu s-Sābi>u-n. See also Ibn Abı- Usaybi<a, 1.215.26–27, who used al-Mubaššir’s work: “It is said that the Sābians are named for Sāb, who is Tāt, son of the prophet Idrı-s—peace be upon him.”

137. al-Mas<u-dı-, Tanbīh 91.3–4. He mentions two genealogies that have been proposed: Sābı- ibn Methuselah ibn Idrı-s and Sābı- ibn Mārı-.

138. Tardieu 1986: 13.

Background

reason to think that al-Mas<u-dı-’s information actually derived entirely from his stay in Harrān. Like most learned tourists, he must have acquired some of his informa-tion from books as well, and if he has mixed book-learning with his fi rst-hand reports, one must be cautious in using his description of the Sābians.139

Along with Abu- Ma<šar al-Balxı-, al-Bı-ru-nı-, al-Mubaššir, and other authors, al-Mas<u-dı- names Hermes as one of the prophets of the S ābians, in a list with Agathodaemon, Homer, Aratus, the fi rst and second Urānı-,140 and others.141 He says in his Muru-g aD-Dahab that the Sābians claim Enoch to be Hermes, and that Hermes means <Utārid (Mercury).142 The report is mixed with traditions about the prophethood of Enoch that derive ultimately from the time of Wahb ibn Munabbih, traditions concerning the number of scrolls revealed to each prophet.143 None of this is original.

But al-Mas<u-dı- is an early and important witness to the generalization of the term Sābi>a to refer to ancient pagans of all kinds. In one passage dealing with the Harrā-nians as Sābians, al-Mas<u-dı- distinguishes the Egyptian Sābians as a particular group of the ancient Sābians, which also include the Greek pagans and Buddhists. Signifi cantly, al-Mas<u-dı- says that the Harrānians are the surviving remnant of the Egyptian Sābians and refers to their differing directions of prayer and dietary restrictions, particularly that the Harrānians do not eat the same foods as the ancient Greeks.144

139. Pingree’s discussion (2002: 26–29) of al-Mas<u-dı-’s description of the temples at Harrān in his Kitāb Muru-g aD-Dahab suggests that he might have been using a work of Abu- Ma<šar in his description of that place. What al-Mas<u-dı- actually says is, “Abu- Ma<šar the astrologer has made mention of the temples and great buildings whose construction took place in the world in each millennium in his book entitled The Thousands. The disciple of Abu- Ma<šar, Ibn al-Māzyār, also reported it in his book SelectedPassages from the Thousands. Others who came before and after them have made mention of many of the buildings and wonders in the world. I have avoided making mention of them [scil. the wonders, not the authors].” Muru-g (Pellat §1419 = 2.407.9–13). This certainly does seem to indicate that al-Mas<u-dı-

used the lost works of these two astrologers, but it also implies that he used other sources as well in the same passages.

140. This name is discussed in chapter 5.141. al-Mas<u-dı-, Tanbīh 121.16–122.1.142. al-Mas<u-dı-, Muru-g (Pellat §62 = 1.42.16–43.4) under Dikr al-mabda> wa-ša>n al-xalīqa, entry:

Uxnu-x. <Utārid is merely the Aramaic word for the planet Mercury (Hermes).143. Discussed in section 4.6.144. al-Mas<u-dı-,Tanbīh, 161.10–15: wa-š-Šamanīyata wa-hum Sābi>atun li-S īna wa-ġayrihim wa-hum

<alā maDāhibi Bu-dāsafa wa-<awāmmi l-Yu-nānīyīna wa-tawagguhuhum fī salātihim ilā l-mašriqi wa-Sābi>ata l-Misrīyīna llaDīna baqīyatuhum fī hāDā l-waqti Sābi>u- l-Harrānīyīna wa-tawagguhahum fī salātihim ilā t-tayammuni wa-huwa l-qiblatu wa-stidbārahumu š-šamāla wa-mtinā<ahum min kaTīrin mina l-ma>ākili llatī kāna Sābi>atu l-Yūnānīyīna ya>kulu-nahā ka-lahmi l-xinzīri wa-l-fi rāxi wa-T-Tu-miwa-l-bāqillā wa-ġayri Dalika. “[We also mentioned] the Šamanı-ya [Buddhists], who are S ābians [= pagans] of the Chinese and others, and who follow the doctrines of Bodhisattva; and the common Hellenes [as opposed to philosophers], their orientation in their prayer toward the east; and the Egyptian S ābians [= pagans] whose remainder is at this time the S ābians [= pagans] of the Harrānians, their orientation in their prayer toward the south, which is [their] qibla, with their backs turning toward the north, and their abstention from many of the foods that the Greek Sābians [= pagans] would eat such as pork, chicken, garlic, fava beans, and other foods . . . ”

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

Charles Genequand has suggested that the reference to Egyptian S ābians refl ects al-Mas<u-dı-’s awareness of “the Egyptian origin of Hermetism.”145 It seems rather that the reference has nothing directly to do with ancient Hermetism. Instead, al-Mas<u-dı- provides us with its meaning when he mentions elsewhere in the same passage “the questions and answers that transpired between the Syrian Porphyry . . . and the Egyptian priest Anebo.” This is a reference to two ancient Greek works: Porphyry’s Letter to Anebo, which survives today only in fragments, and the work known as De mysteriis Aegyptiorum, written in response to it in the name of Anebo’s Egyptian teacher, Abammon—who is generally accepted to be in reality the philoso-pher Iamblichus, writing under this guise.146 The extant fragments of the Letter to Anebo deal with the subject of Egyptian religion in a reasoned critique of theurgy, posing challenging theoretical questions about a number of pagan religious practices from a philosophical point of view; the De mysteriis offers a thoroughgoing

As-Saraxsı-’s description of the Harrānian Sābians says that fava beans (bāqillā) and garlic were forbidden for the Harrānians (Fihrist 384.14). The injunction against fava beans is apparently of Pythagorean origin. There is some evidence that, even in the late tenth century, Sābians of Harrānian origin did indeed follow these dietary restrictions and take them seriously. An interesting anecdote reported by Abu- Mansu-r aT-§a<ālibı- (d. 1038) in his Kitāb Yatīmat ad-dahr, 2.242.10–14 (in part 2, bāb 3, in the section fīDikr Abī Ishāq as-Sābī wa-mahāsin kalāmihī) on the authority of Abu- Nasr Sahl ibn al-Marzubān (d. ca 1030) has it that Abu- Ishāq Ibrāhı-m ibn Hilāl as-Sābi> (925–994), a great-grandson of §ābit ibn Qurra, refused to eat fava beans when they were served with a meal at the house of al-Muhallabı- (i.e., Abu-

Muhammad al-Muhallabı-, vizier of the Buyid amı-r Mu<izz-ad-dawla, whose chief secretary Abu- IshāqIbrāhı-m was). When urged to join in eating them, Abu- Ishāq as-Sābı- is reported to have said that he did not wish to disobey God’s command (not to eat them), whereupon he was excused from that part of the meal.

The Nabataean Agriculture has one of its Aramaic sources, Yanbu-šād, claiming that “Hermes (Irmīsā) and before him Agathodaemon (Aġātādaymu-n) forbade fi sh and fava beans to the people of their country, and forbade it very strongly . . .” It goes on to say that although Hermes and Agathodaemon forbade this, the Egyptians used to grow fava beans anyway for medicine (Ibn Wahšı-ya 1.499.12–13 and 1.500.3–4). The Nabataean Agriculture, exhibiting here an Aramaic form of the name Hermes, perhaps points to a wider familiarity among Mesopotamian Aramaeans with Hermes and such “pagan” dietary laws than might otherwise be expected (cf. Hämeen-Anttila 2006: 181 and 199).

145. Genequand 1999: 118.146. al-Mas<u-dı-, Tanbīh, 161.2–3, 162.5–12: wa-Dakarnā fī Kitābi l-Maqālāti fī usu-li d-diyānāti

wa-Kitābi ¢azā>ini d-dīni wa-sirri l-<ālamīna . . . mā garā bayna Furfuriyu-sa s-Su-rīyi sāhibi KitābiIsāġu-gī fī l-mudxali ilā kitābi Aristātālīs fī l-mantiqi wa-kāna nasrānīyan yansuru maDāhiba S ā>ibati l-Yu-nānīyīna muxfīyan li-Dālika wa-bayna Anābu- l-kāhini l-Misrīyi wa-kāna yansuru l-falsafata l-u-lāllatī kāna <alayhā Fu-Tāġu-rasu wa-§ālīsu l-Milatīyu wa-ġayruhumā wa-hiya maDhabu Sābi>ati l-Misrīyīna min al-masā>ili wa-l-gawābāti fī l-<ulu-mi l-ilāhīyati wa-Dālika fī rasā>ila baynahum ma<ru-fatin <inda man <uniya bi-<ulu-mi l-awā>ili wa-mā kānu- <alayhi mina l-ārā>i wa-n-nihali. “We recorded in Chapters on the Principles of the Religions and The Treasuries of Religion and the Secret of the Ages [two books by al-Mas<u-dı- not extant today] . . . the questions and answers on the divine sciences that transpired between Porphyry of Tyre—author of the Eisagoge on the introduction to Aristotle’s book on logic—he was a Christian, defending the doctrines of the Greek Sābians [= pagans] to hide that fact—and Anebo the Egyptian priest, who was defending the fi rst philosophy, which Pythagoras, Thales the Milesian, and others followed—that is, the doctrine of the Egyptian S ābians [= pagans]. This is in epistles between them [among them? NB: plural, not dual] that are well known among those who are concerned with the sciences of the ancients and with the doctrines and the sects to which they adhered.” (French translation of this passage and further references in Kraus 1942–1943: 2.128n5.)

Background

rejoinder from the adopted point of view of an Egyptian priest.147 Therefore it seems highly likely that the reference in this passage to “Egyptian S ābians,” of whom the Harrānians are supposed to be a remaining part, and “Greek S ābians” (Sābian here clearly meaning just “pagan”) has only to do with the discussions found in these “questions and answers,” meaning these two works, mentioned in the very same passage by al-Mas<u-dı-—and does not have anything to do directly with Hermes or Hermetica. Al-Mas<u-dı-’s identifi cation of the Harrānian pagans with the Egyptian pagans in the context of these works, which, in their discussions, explicitly connect Egyptian religion with astrolatry, is indeed striking, but there is nothing to suggest that the information here derives from the Harrānians themselves.148 More interest-ing is al-Mas<u-dı-’s statement that Pythagoras, Thales, and others followed the way of the Egyptian S ābians. This probably echoes the De mysteriis, which emphasizes that sages like Pythagoras and Plato formed philosophy out of what they took from the stelae of the Egyptian Hermes.149

Unfortunately, there are no more than these interesting hints and questions, because we do not know al-Mas<u-dı-’s source. Yet there is a clue. With the next stroke of his pen, al-Mas<u-dı- writes that many books were composed in accordance with the doctrines of the Pythagoreans and in defense of them. He adds that someone else who wrote about “that”—meaning a subject just mentioned: either the Letter to Anebo, the Sābians, or the Pythagoreans, or perhaps all of these things—was Abu-

Bakr Muh ammad ibn Zakarīyā> ar-Rāzı- (d. 925 or 935), the famous physician of notoriously heterodox views.150 Then al-Mas<u-dı- immediately digresses to explain

The interesting claim that Porphyry was once a Christian derives ultimately from a late antique Greek church history. Socrates of Constantinople says in his Ecclesiastical History (3.23, written ca 440), that Porphyry had renounced Christianity in a rage after having been beaten by Christians at Caesarea. The source for this is named as Eusebius of Caesarea. A derivative of this story is repeated in the Tübingen Theosophy. (On these passages, see Schott 2008, 274–276.) The account made its way into Arabic probably by way of a Syriac translation. Thus we fi nd in a disorderly passage in the history of al-Mas<u-dı-’s contemporary, the Christian Agapius of Manbig (wr. ca 940s), perhaps derived from the lost chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa (d. 785), that Porphyry was a Christian but apostasized (Agapius 1.2.183 = Patrologia Orientalis 11.1, 45.6-9): “Porphyry—commentator on the Book of Aristotle, who was one of the deacons of the church of Tyre, because he was boasting proudly over all his fellow-deacons, so they fell upon him one day on the altar and struck him a painful blow, so he went out, left Christianity, opposed the Messiah, dissembled, and refuted the Gospel—said . . . ” Al-Mas<u-dı-’s report alleging that Porphyry was formerly a Christian must derive from a Christian chronographic source. What may have begun as fi gurative, “intellectual” blows against Porphyry have by this time been taken unambiguously as physical blows.

147. Porphyry, Epistola ad Anebonem, ed. A. R. Sodano, 1958.148. The De mysteriis (1.17–19) explains the gods in astrological terms, and states that the visible

planets are gods. This might have prompted an identifi cation of the Harrānian religion with the ancient Egyptian religion. Perhaps also related to this problem are the Arabic Hermetica that relate texts allegedly discovered at different sites of ancient Egyptian ruins. Two of these have been edited in Vereno 1992.

149. De mysteriis 1.1–2. Pythagoras was listed by al-Bı-ru-nı- as one of the prophets of the Harrānians. See 3.4.4.

150. L. E. Goodman, “al-Rāzı-, Abu- Bakr Muhammad b. Zakariyyā>,” EI2, 8.474a–477b.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

that ar-Rāzı- is the one who wrote the al-Mansu-rī fī t-tibb (apparently this medical work, although written just three decades before, was already well known),151 and next, for no apparent reason, begins to give information about the Timaeus of Plato and its Arabic translations and commentaries, and other works on the ordering of the world.

It may be possible to explain these digressions and to shed some light thereby on the sources on ancient paganism at the disposal of Arabic scholars in the tenth cen-tury. Ar-Rāzı- wrote a work dealing with Porphyry’s lost Letter to Anebo the Egyptianin some way. According to one list of ar-Rāzı-’s works, he wrote a refutation of Porphyry’s Letter; according to another list, it was a refutation of the response to Porphyry’s Letter, that is, it would seem, a refutation of the De mysteriis Aegyptiorum.152

The latter is more likely, as this would explain al-Mas<u-dı-’s knowledge of the answersto Porphyry’s questions. Al-Mas<u-dı-’s connected reference to ar-Rāzı- as someone who wrote on the subject of this letter suggests that ar-Rāzı-, and perhaps specifi cally this refutation by ar-Rāzı-, was at least one of al-Mas<u-dı-’s sources on the subject.153

As it also happens, the heresiographer aš-Šahrastānı- claims to quote from Porphyry’s Letter to Anebo in his Kitāb al-Milal wān-nihal (Religions and Sects) under the head-ing of Porphyry’s philosophy. The passages cited, however, are not translations of any of the fragments of the Letter extant in Greek. Rather, this Arabic citation is actually entirely the same as one of the surviving fragments of Porphyry’s Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus!154 One may suppose, then, that somehow Porphyry’s Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus became mixed up with or circulated together with his Letter to Anebo, and that this confusion must have happened by the time of ar-Rāzı-, so that when al-Mas<u-dı- used ar-Rāzı-’s work as a source on the Sābians, he began also to include information about commentaries on the Timaeus because he associated the two with one another. Yet the contents of the real Letter to Anebo or the De mysteriis must have been known in some form in Arabic, for otherwise the reference to “Anebo the Egyptian” in the title of ar-Rāzı-’s work and al-Mas<u-dı-’s discussion of Egyptian S ābianism could not be explained. Beyond these suggestions, the problem resists defi nitive conclusion for now because too many of the texts are missing. Although al-Mas<u-dı- can provide important clues about the development

151. Al-Mas<u-dı- says that ar-Rāzı-’s al-Mansu-rī was written in AH 310 (i.e., 922–923 ce). Al-Mas<u-dı-

stated just a few pages preceding (109.8) that this work of his was written in AH 345 (i.e., 956–957 ce).152. The fi rst list is that reported by al-Bı-ru-nı-, Fihrist-i Kitābhā-yi Rāzī, 14, no. 128: Naqd. Kitāb

Furfu-riyu-s ilā Anābu- al-Misrī (Refutation of Porphyry’s Book to Anebo the Egyptian). Cf. Kraus 1942–1943: 2.128n5. The second is in the Fihrist (358.9; ed. Flügel 300.17–18): Kitāb fī naqd. kitāb Anābu-

ilā Furfu-riyu-s fī šarh maDāhib Aristālīs fī l-<ilm al-ilāhī (On the Refutation of the Book of Anebo to Porphyry, on the Analysis of the Doctrines of Aristotle on the Divine Science).

153. A future study should investigate the surviving writings of ar-Rāzı- for evidence of his familiarity with the Letter to Anebo or the De mysteriis.

154. As pointed out by Jolivet and Monnot in their translation: aš-Šahrastānı-, Livre 2.357–358n2. Cf. Porphyry, In Platonis Timaeum, ed. Sodano, 119–122.

Background

of medieval Arabic interpretations of paganism, he does not offer any real evidence for works of Hermes or the Arabic understanding of “Hermetism.”

3.4.8 Evidence from the Ġāyat al-hakīm, the Kitāb al-Istamāxīs,and Mu-sā ibn Maymu-n (d. 1204)

The notorious eleventh-century Andalusian book of magic Ġāyat al-hakīm contains, in the seventh fasl of its third maqāla, a long passage describing the Sābian ritual practices for “procuring the powers of the planets.”155 Dating the contents of the passage is hin-dered by its apparently compilatory nature; it has several sources.156 The extract begins with a reference to an astrologer named “Tabarı-” of unknown identity. Pingree discov-ered and published a unique Latin translation of the lost Arabic source from which the passages of this “Tabarı-” are derived. This latter work itself claims to have been found among the books of Hermes and transmitted by an Apollonius, philosopher of Egypt.157

Another work cited in this section of the Ġāyat al-hakīm is the physician ar-Rāzı-’s Kitābal-<Ilm al-ilāhī (Theology). Ar-Rāzı- died ca 930, which would place the compilation of the contents of this section, at the earliest, in the middle of the tenth century.158 A third work cited is a certain Mus.haf al-hunafā> (Codex of the Pagans) otherwise unknown.159

155. istiglāb quwā l-kawākib (Ġāyat al-hakīm 195.2–3). The fasl occupies pages 195–228 of the Arabic edition.

156. Much of the information summarized here was brought together by Burnett 1986: 87.157. Latin translation edited in Pingree 1992: Hic est Liber planetarum inventus in libris Hermetis.

Transtulit eum Appolonius [sic] philosophus Egipti. In the article presenting this text, Pingree argues that the author of the work may be Abu- Hafs <Umar ibn al-Farruxān at-Tabarı-, an important early <Abbāsid court astrologer (fl . ca 762–812), but concluded that the matter is open to some doubt (idem, 111). In the Arabic Ġāyat al-hakīm itself (195.2) the name is given without the defi nite article plainly as “Tabarı-,” although the German of Ritter’s and Plessner’s translation gives it with the defi nite article, calling its absence an error (trans. 206.12n4). Pingree’s edition of the Latin version of the work, based on the unique manuscript, gives the reading Athabary (112.15), perhaps pointing to the presence of the defi nite article at one time.

However, the Latin translation of the Arabic text from which this author was cited in the Ġāyat al-hakīm gives his name as abuelabec altanarani. Pingree recognized that these letters would most likely represent “Abu- l-<Abbās at-Tabarānı-” (with the easy confusion of the Arabic letters bā> and nu-n), but because no astrologer by that name is known, he made an elaborate argument (Pingree 1992: 107–111)that this author was truly Abu- Hafs at-Tabarı- and that “the translator [into Latin] and the scribes were fully competent to commit the sequence of errors that would pervert the latter into its troubled Latin form” (idem, 110). I am not convinced by the argument. In a later publication, thinking that this conclusion was secure, and that the evidently distorted name did in fact refer to <Umar ibn al-Farruxānat-Tabarı-, Pingree characterized the practices outlined in this passage as the earliest evidence in Arabic for Harrānian ritual syncretism (Pingree 2002: 21–22). A major problem with this view is that “at-Tabarānı-’s” treatise, at least as it is known in its Latin form, contains no references either to S ābians or to Harrānians. Pingree recognized this (1992: 107), but argued that the similarities between the rituals described in this text and those later described as S ābian established the Harrānian identity of these early ones. The possibility rather of non-Harrānian Sābian practices is considered below.

158. Pingree 1992: 105–106.159. Ġāyat al-hakīm, 205.15. Pingree 1992: 106 mistranscribes the title and translates it in a mislead-

ing fashion as “book of the true believers.” Pingree 2002: 22 gives the title erroneously as Musannaf al-hunafā>, translated now strangely as Book of the “Old Believers.” On the complicated evolution of the term hunafā>, see de Blois 2002, and chapter 5 in this volume.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

Arabic works of Hermes extant today in manuscript, but not mentioned in the text by name, are also cited in the description of S ābian rituals in the Ġāyat al-hakīm. Plessner discovered correspondences between passages here and in the (still unedited) Arabic Hermetic work Kitāb al-Ustuwwatās.160 Another correspondence had already been dis-covered decades earlier, in which the Ġāyat al-hakīm gives the names of the spirits of the planets that the S ābians used. The nine names of Jupiter are the same as those appearing in the Arabic (also still unedited) Hermetic work Kitāb al-Istamāxīs.161

At fi rst glance, it might seem that the correspondences between passages in Arabic works of Hermes and the words of the “S ābian” rituals should lead us to attribute the Kitāb al-Istamāxīs to Harrānians, either those of Harrān itself or, more probably, those of Baġdād.162 If this conclusion were correct, then at last there would appear a seemingly defi nite link between an extant Arabic Hermetic text and Harrā-nian Sābians.163 Because the Kitāb al-Istamāxīs is related to a number of other pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica in Arabic, including Kitāb al-Ustuwwatās, Kitābal-Hādītu-s, and Kitāb al-Istamātīs, which even share some passages among each other, the link would become a series of connections and an entire complex of Arabic Hermetica would fi nd a home with the Harrānians.164 If one adds to this the testimony of Mu-sā ibn Maymu-n, who in his Kitāb Dalālat al-hā>irīn (Guide for the Perplexed) lists the Kitāb al-Istamāxīs as one of the books of the S ābians, the link would become stronger still.165 Finally, the appearance of a book named “The Secrets of the S ābians” (Kitāb Asrār as-Sābi>a) in Leiden Arabic manuscript 1235, containing also the Kitāb al-Ustuwwatās, would seem to offer further evidence of the connection.

However, a serious problem impedes these conclusions: who are the “S ābians” described in the Ġāyat al-hakīm? It has already been shown several times in this chapter that references to Sābians, especially those coming from the tenth century or later, frequently indicate nothing more specifi c than “pagans” as imagined by Arabic intellectuals in this time. They do not necessarily refer to Harrānians in every case. But there are references to Harrān and things Harrānian toward the end of this section that would indeed seem at fi rst to link them with the Arabic works of Hermes

160. Noted by Pingree 1992: 106: see Ritter and Plessner’s 1962 German translation “Picatrix” 224n4,227n1, 229n3, and 230n2, where references to MS Paris 2577 and the Buch über die Pneumata indicate the Kitāb al-Ustuwwatās.

161. De Goeje and Dozy 1885. These fi ndings are briefl y summarized in Burnett 1986: 87.162. This conclusion was most recently repeated by Pingree 1992 passim, and 2002: 31.163. Though Pingree 1992: 107 and 2002: 30–31 argue fairly convincingly that these are Sābian books,

questions remain as to whether they are Harrānian in origin (rather than merely Sābian in the sense “pagan” as the idea was understood in ninth-century Baġdād) and even what these books actually say.

164. A table of correspondences between a couple of these texts was published by Burnett 2001a: 184.165. Maimonides, Kitāb Dalālat al-hā>irīn, 588.9–10: wa-min tilka l-kutub Kitāb al-Istamāxīs

al-mansu-b li-Aristu-. Note, however, that in his discussion of the S ābians, Maimonides did not make particular mention of Harrān or Harrānian Sābians. He was interested rather in the primordial religion, that is, “paganism” as understood from a Jewish point of view (Stroumsa 2004: 341–352).

Background

just mentioned. This is in fact the only part of the whole Ġāyat al-hakīm containing direct references to Harrān, named here as the place of the ritual testing and initia-tion of young men.166 Dayr Kādı-, a location near Harrān appearing in other Arabic descriptions of Harrānian festivals, is named a few pages later as the site of a ritual involving a decapitated boy whose head is placed on an altar where it howls; its howls were used to predict the future of the S ābian people.167 Moreover, the pagan god Mārā Samyā (Aramaic: the Blind Lord) is named;168 he is known also from the Fihrist in a passage describing the Harrānian religion.169

These references, however, occur toward the very end of this section of the Ġāyatal-hakīm, which, as has been shown, is a compilation from several sources. Most of the fasl consists of descriptions of rituals for sacrifi cing to the planets, as just described, including the names of the planets given correctly according to various ancient languages, among them Persian, Greek, and even Sanskrit.170 But neither Sābians nor Harrānians are mentioned in the source attributed to “Tabarı-” in its surviving Latin version. Nor do the extant Arabic Hermetic sources of this passage, the Kitāb al-Istamāxīs and the Kitāb al-Ustuwwatās, seem to contain direct refer-ences to Harrānians (though they lack editions and almost any studies of their con-tents to ascertain this conclusively).171 On the other hand, the direct references to things Harrānian come only in the last four pages of the fasl, after the phrase hāDāmaDhab as-Sābi>īn, “This [the preceding rituals] is the doctrine of the Sābians [i.e., pagans].” This brief sentence is a marker indicating that one excerpt has come to an end and another is about to begin. The subsequent passage describes the kinds of sacrifi ces and offerings they make and blames them for the practice of child sacri-fi ce.172 One may assume, therefore, that the end of this compilation on the Sābians,

166. Ġāyat al-hakīm 226.9.167. Idem 228.16–17: “They bear the head (of the decapitated youth) to Dayr Kādı-, and then they

put it on top of an altar and it howls unbearably. They conclude from its howl whether the number of the Sābians will increase or decrease and whether rule will come to them or not . . . ” On this and other stories concerning rituals involving decapitated heads, see Green 1992: 178–180. Dayr Kādı- (also Kādāand Kadā) appears as the site of Harrānian festivals in Bar Bahlu-l’s Kitāb ad-Dalā>il (267.11–268.4) and in an-Nadı-m’s Fihrist (ed. Flügel) 322.9–10, 325.4–5, 325.26–28 (deriving reports from Abu- Sa<ı-d Wahb ibn Ibrāhı-m the Christian and another, anonymous source). It is also mentioned by al-Bı-ru-nı-, ATār,320.19 and 321.1 (deriving reports from Muhammad ibn <Abdal<azı-z al-Hāšimı-).

Reeves 2004 has given the most satisfying solution yet to the problems in the numerous reports by Jews, Christians, and Muslims of members of other religions using decapitated heads in ceremonies. He shows with high likelihood that these reports are distorted accounts that originated to defame Manichaeans, who used an image of their prophet Mani’s head in their annual Bema festival. See also Harrak 2004.

168. Ġāyat al-hakīm 226.5.169. Fihrist 389.23 refers to ar-rabb al-a<mā al-Mirrīx, the Blind Lord Mars.170. Pingree 1989b: 10 argued that the Sanskrit names in this passage “conclusively prove(d) that the

Harrānians were infl uenced by India in their planetary worship.” This seems to me extremely unlikely; see the appendix to this chapter.

171. The fullest summary of their contents is Burnett 2001a (“Liber Antimaquis”).172. Ġāyat al-hakīm 225.8–17.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

with its different type of contents, comes from an altogether different source, per-haps one related to the other Arabic descriptions of the Harrānian calendars, with which these last pages share some information.173 In that case, the connection between Harrān and the rest of the chapter, which, as just seen, was derived from sources making no mention of that city or its people, is effectively severed. At the very least, it makes it impossible for one to assume that the planetary rituals are con-nected in a common Harrānian origin.

If the ritual offerings to the planets found here are not Harrānian, what could their origin be? Indian, Greek, and Persian elements have been recognized in the Arabic Hermetica that served as sources for the planetary rituals. Charles Burnett pointed out that such a combination of pieces “fi ts in with the cosmopolitan cul-ture of scholars serving the early <Abbāsid caliphs in Baġdād.”174 On the other hand, Pingree wrote, “It is appealing to think that the . . . Hermetic treatises disguised as letters from Aristotle to Alexander were forged by a S ābian [of Harrān] after that sect had declared Hermes to be its prophet . . . ; but, of course, they could have forged some of them before that date and still attributed their doctrines to Hermes. The contents and circumstances of the composition of these treatises are in need of a comprehensive investigation.”175 It is still uncertain whether the HarrānianSābians who moved to Baġdād are responsible for any of this literature. Because, as argued above, “S ābian” came to mean nothing more than “pagan,” a member of the primordial religion as imagined by Arabic scholars of the early tenth century and later, these astral rituals may be nothing more than one author’s attempt to realize or recreate what that primordial religion really was. The author need not have been from Harrān in order to have an interest in the rituals of paganism. This is demonstrated by al-Kindı-’s De radiis, a work explaining ritual magic in philo-sophical terms; al-Kindı- was no Harrānian but he exhibited such an interest. Therefore it is possible to think that others, not Harrānians, wrote these works in an effort to devise a pagan—“S ābian”—system. In other words, this “S ābianism” may have become for Arabic scholars nothing more than a scholarly experiment, even a fad, of the ninth and tenth centuries, joining together diverse elements in an attempt to reconstruct a rationale for the pagan thought as recently resurrected and newly important, and which had already been authorized by its Qur>ānicname. In a time and place when ancient pagans like Socrates, Hippocrates, and Aristotle now enjoyed the highest prestige as masters of truth obtained through reason, while theological and interconfessional debates were foremost in the minds of scholars in all fi elds, it would be surprising if no one tried to investigate the

173. Perhaps it is even to be viewed as the kind of antipagan Christian polemic that Hjärpe suspected in descriptions of Harrānian religion.

174. Burnett 1986: 87.175. Pingree 2002: 31. Burnett 2007 offers evidence that §ābit ibn Qurra used talismans like those

described in the Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica.

Background

religion of the ancient philosophers.176 The Arabic Hermetica explaining talismans and astral magic claim to have been related from ancient books by Aristotle him-self, the most prestigious of them. For now, the sources of classical Arabic scholars’ understanding of paganism, and paganism’s partial rehabilitation by certain Muslims as S ābianism, must await a separate, fuller, investigation. In any case, we are left without a securely identifi ed, defi nitely Harrānian tradition of Hermetic books. Therefore there are no known grounds for considering the Harrānians to be “Hermetists.”

3.5 The End of the H. arranian S. abians

Any attempt to locate an alleged Hermetic literature of Harrānian origin must take the chronology of their religious community into account. While historians have generally focused on the survival and continuity of the Harrānian pagans into the ninth and tenth centuries, surprisingly little discussion, since Chwolsohn, has been raised about their history in this period and their eventual demise.177 Yet any sup-posed Harrānian Sābian literature in Arabic, Hermetic or not, must of course have been composed or translated while the S ābians of Harrān still existed. To establish a chronological framework for future discussion—including section 5.3, where the topic is resumed—it is important to determine when, and under what circum-stances, the Harrānian Sābian religion fl ourished and disappeared.

There must have been strong social pressures against the Harrānian Sābians to assimilate, both among Christians and Muslims, and this would likely have been felt most acutely when Sābian individuals in Syria ventured outside of their communi-ties or had to deal with non-Sābians in legal disputes. One must suppose that their numbers slowly dwindled in size relative to the overall population, as did other non-Muslim communities of the region from the eighth century onward, Jewish, Christian, and Magian. The smaller the community, the more vulnerable they must have been, and the Harrānian Sābians were surely the smallest. Living in important urban centers like Harrān and Baġdād, they were probably more conspicuous in the eyes of Muslims and Christians than the pagans persisting in the countryside.

After al-Ma>mu-n, whose threat reportedly induced them to claim to be the Qur>ā-nically sanctioned S ābians, the earliest indication that their status was a problem in dealing with Muslims is from a century later in a report on the life of §ābit ibn Qurra’s son, Sinān.178 Sinān was a physician for three consecutive caliphs: al-Muqtadir

176. A parallel can be found in the magicians of Renaissance Europe, described by Yates 1964, who thought that they were recovering the primordial religion in the form of the Hermetica and Kabbala in an era when ancient texts were being published and studied anew in great numbers. On the prestige of the Greek philosophers in this period, see 1.3 above and Gutas 1998.

177. Chwolsohn 1856: 1.657–676; Tardieu 1986: 11–12.178. The report was written within about a half century of Sinān’s death: Fihrist 359.28–360.1 = Ibn

al-Qiftı- 190.13–16.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

(r. 908–932), in whose reign he became Chief of the Physicians of the caliph, al-Qāhir (r. 932–934), and ar-Rād. ı- (r. 934–940). The story has it that al-Qāhir, during his brief and notorious reign, urged Sinān to convert to Islam. Sinān declined repeatedly (fa-mtana<a mtinā<an kaTīran). Then the caliph intimidated him, so that Sinān became afraid and actually did convert. Fearing more threats, however, he fl ed to ¢urāsān, eventually returning to Baġdād, presumably only after al-Qāhir was deposed. Al-Qāhir was remembered for his brutality and vindictive behavior and Sinān was not his only victim. Even his vizier, Ibn Muqla, felt compelled to fl ee from the court, eventually inducing one of the Turkic regiments to overthrow him. Al-Qāhir was imprisoned and blinded within a short time.179

Muslim jurists relate a report amplifying the context of this incident with Sinān.180 In 933 the caliph al-Qāhir went to the Šāfi<ı- jurisconsult Abu- Sa<ı-dal-Istaxrı- (d. 940), the walīy al-hisba in Baġdād at the time, and asked him for a fatwā, or legal ruling based on an interpretation of the sources of Islamic authority, on the status of the S ābians.181 Al-Istaxrı- ruled that the S ābians should be put to death because they clearly differed from the Jews and Christians and worshipped the planets. But al-Qāhir soon dropped the matter upon receiving “a lot of money” (māl kaTīr) from the Sābians. It is safe to assume that the caliph’s pressure on Sinānibn §ābit to convert, and Sinān’s fl ight soon after, was connected to this event. Al-Qāhir’s threat, however, was evidently short-lived, because the Sābians persisted in Baġdād for generations thereafter, many of them successful in the court. Therefore this did not amount to a new general policy of persecution of the Harrā-nian Sābians. It was rather a money-making scheme of al-Qāhir, perhaps also designed also to win the support of a certain religious faction, all at the expense of a small and vulnerable group.

Yet al-Istaxrı-’s fatwā against the S ābians remained in the books of jurists for centuries, long after the Sābians of Harrān had ceased to exist. Probably some Muslims continued to feel justifi ed in mistreating the S ābians in the meanwhile. There is an indication of an ambience of general harassment implicit in an edict decades later from the caliph at-Tā>i< (r. 974–991), guaranteeing the rights and pro-tections of Dimmīs (licit non-Muslims who pay the poll tax) to the S ābians of Harrān, ar-Raqqa, and Diyār Mud. ar (the latter two being a town near Harrān and

179. D. Sourdel, “al-Qāhir,” EI2 4.423b–424a.180. an-Nawawı- (d. 1277) 1977, 2.239.3–5; cf. Chwolsohn 1856: 2.541. According to Massignon (1950:

651–652), the event is described in as-Sigzı-’s astrological compendium al-Gāmi< aš-Šāhī; but he cites no manuscript, section title, or folio number; I have not been able to verify it. Chwolsohn (2.561) further gives a similar report from Abu- <Abdallāh Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Ansārı- al-¢azragı- al-Andalusı-,saying that al-Istaxrı- declared their kufr because they believed in the infl uence of the stars and that the stars had agency (i.e., were fa<<āla). Both al-Mahallı- and Zaynaddı-n Abu- Yahyā Zakarīyā> ibn Muhammad al-Ansārı- mention the fatwā (Chwolsohn 1956: 2.579 and 2.582).

181. The walīy al-hisba, or muhtasib, is an offi cial in charge of regulating the markets and public life in general according to the morality of Islamic law.

Background

the district around them). The edict is directed at government offi cials who are reminded that the Sābians should remain free from injury of any kind, retain their inheritances, and keep the freedom both to attend their places of worship and to fulfi ll the duties required by their religious customs. The existence of the document implies that the Sābians had suffered some abuse at the hands of offi cials and others in the mid-tenth century, presumably the kind of mistreatment that can be expected against a people having a marginal status as a minority of disputed legality.182 If the specifi c issues addressed by the edict are an indication, the S ābians in and around Harrān were, at least sometimes, deprived of their inheritances, interfered with and perhaps even attacked while traveling, and prevented from using their temples and holy sites. An offi cial edict was needed to ensure their security. However, the very fact that the caliph himself issued this edict shows that all Muslims were expected to tolerate the Sābians; indeed it is directly stated in the text.183

The edict survives in the collected epistles of Abu- Ishāq Ibrāhı-m ibn Hilāl as-Sābi> (d. 994), Sinān ibn §ābit’s grandson, and also the chief secretary in Baġdād at different times of his life; he himself wrote the edict in the caliph’s name. There are a number of anecdotes hinting at the largely amicable experience of Harrānian S ā-bians living and working among the Muslims of the caliphs’ court. This is probably because the S ābians there conformed to the norms around them and made their dif-ferences with others inconspicuous. For example, about this secretary Ibrāhı-m ibn Hilāl as-Sābi> we read, “He used to be good company for the Muslims and would provide the highest service for the magnates. He used to join them in fasting in the month of Ramad. ān and would memorize the Qur>ān so that it came readily to the tip of his tongue and the bit of his pen.”184 It is likely that the success of the S ābiansin Baġdād and, in the case of the edict just discussed, the infl uential position of Ibrā-hı-m the Sābian chancellor were instrumental in ensuring the rights of the S ābians in Syria, in and around Harrān.

For the most part, later Arabic authors found the Sābians of Baġdād noteworthy for their literary or scientifi c accomplishments; usually in discussions of their lives and works, their peculiar religion receives only brief and passing attention, no more than in the case of Jewish or Christian scholars working in Arabic. The exception is the heresiographers and theologians, for whom the Sābian doctrines were a matter of diffi culty and who present us with partisan accounts of their religion.185 Even

182. I use the term minority here with reservations, not wishing to import all of its modern senses. I refer primarily to their smaller numbers and their conspicuous differences with those around them.

183. Reproduced by Chwolsohn 1856: 2.537–538. De Goeje and Houtsma 1888–1907: 1.186–188 show that this edict occurs the section of Ibrāhīm’s letters entitled Mā nufiDa ilā l-<ummāli wa-l-muta-sarrifīna wa-n-nawāhī, “Communications to the Governors, Administrators, and Districts.” For a fuller account of the letters of Abu- Ishāq Ibrāhīm ibn Hilāl see Hachmeier 2002 (where the letter under discussion is listed as no. 319—pp. 248 and 269—but not edited).

184. aT-§a<ālibı- 2.241.20–242–1.185. Hjärpe 1972 remains the most developed analysis of these discussions. See section 3.1 in this

volume.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

here, they do not address individual Sābians by name; they treat only the theological problems of S ābianism as they understood it. Nevertheless, the Sābian kind of paganism, in this late permutation and understood in the terms explained above, seems to have been simply an accepted religion in the court during the tenth cen-tury, even if, as seen in the fatwā of al-Istaxrı- and al-Qāhir’s short-lived persecution, there were some predatory people who saw opportunities for personal advantage in making trouble for them in the name of religion.

One of the surviving poems of Abu- Ishāq Ibrāhı-m ibn Hilāl indirectly discusses the status of the S ābians.186 The poem is a ġazal, or love song, addressed to a young woman. The following translation makes no claim to capture any hint of its musicality:

Every person, Muslim and confederate,187 has in you the justest witness to his religion.

When the Muslims see you they are certain of the hu-rīs of the gardens in everlasting ease.

When the Christians consider you to be a gazelle fawn stretching its full moon, bending on a branch,188

they praise their trinity and testify about you, since you united three in one.189

When the Jews see your shining forehead, they will say to the repudiator and denier of their religion:

“This is the splendor of the All-Merciful, [as] when he showed it to his interlocutor Moses, the God-worshipping prophet.”

The Magians see your face shining white under black curls like a pool of darkness,

so between the darkness there and the light here stand proofs that they make ready for every opponent.

You become their morning sun; how many of them bend in prayer to you and prostrate at the darkness!

The S ābians, holding that you are unique in beauty, confess a glorious single one ( fard).

You are for them like shining Venus when she is fortunate with Jupiter and Mercury.

186. aT-§a<ālibı-, Yatīmat ad-dahr, 2.259.7–19. Chwolsohn 1856: 2.540 gives the three verses on the Sābians.

187. mu<āhad, synonymous with Dimmī (cf. Lane 1863–1893: 5.2184a).188. This line is a case of multiple isti<āra (roughly, “metaphor;” see S. A. Bonebakker, “Isti<āra,”

EI2, 4.248b–252b). The gazelle fawn frequently stands for the beloved in ancient Arabic poetry. Here its face is likened to the full moon, a normal description for the beloved’s face; the branch is the fawn’s slender body.

189. This also can refer cleverly to the three images combined metaphorically in the previous line: the fawn, the moon, and the branch.

Background

So, by your power, all of them understand religion, whether they stray from the path or follow it rightly.

You were good to them but tempted me, and abandoned me going about among them with a corrupt religion (as<ā bi-dīnin fāsidī).190

In the song, Abu- Ish āq Ibrāhı-m addresses a beautiful beloved playfully as if she were God, admired for her different characteristics by the different sects, and in each case rightly: the Magians adore the striking contrast between her jet-black hair and her white skin, like the two Zoroastrian principles of original light and darkness; the Jews see the light of God in her shining forehead, like the fl ame Moses saw on Mount Sinai; the Muslims see in her the promised maidens of Paradise; for the Sābians, she is like the bright planet Venus at her most auspicious. As in a typical ġazal, the poet complains at the end that the beloved has mistreated him; in this case, she has aban-doned him to go about with a “corrupt religion,” meaning that he worships her in his longing. Leaving the genre-specifi c signifi cance aside, we fi nd implicit in these lyrics several ideas about religion and the status of the S ābians: that the divinity is truly one and loved by all, but appears differently, and is admired differently, depend-ing on how one looks at her; that the Harrānian Sābian religion is just another legitimate point of view, comparable to and on a par with the other four major religions; the song assumes, and argues for, the legitimacy of the S ābians by assert-ing their confederate (Dimmī) status in the fi rst line. Moreover, the S ābians appear as unquestionably monotheistic: the Christians have God as a trinity, the Magians have two principles, but the S ābians see God as one. At the same time something of the astral character of the S ābian religion in Baġdād is confi rmed, by this tenth-century Sābian’s own words, although his poetic voice here is that of a lover over-come by longing, not that of a Sābian as such. It shows that the descriptions making the Sābian Harrānian religion to be an astral cult cannot be entirely incorrect and purely polemical, at least as far as the Sābians in Baġdād are concerned.191

The last adherent of the Harrānian Sābian religion known by name was Abu-

Ish āq Ibrāhı-m’s grandson, Hilāl ibn al-Muhassin (d. 1055), also an important fi gure in the court, but now in a time when the <Abbāsid caliphs had lost most of their for-mer territory and actual power to generals, amı-rs, sultāns, and the counter-caliphate of the Fātimids in Egypt. The sources say that Hilāl converted to Islam of his own choice. According to the most detailed account, told in the fi rst person at three removes from Hilāl himself, he claimed to have some moving dreams, beginning in 1008/1009, in which the prophet Muh ammad entreated him to convert to Islam. After his father al-Muhassin died, a S ābian until the end, in 1010, Hilāl followed the guidance of his dreams and fi nally converted in 1012. The king (probably the Bu-yid

190. My translation has benefi ted greatly from several pointers on its interpretation by Everett Rowson and Bilal Orfali.

191. Hjärpe 1972: 43–49 regards the astrolatry of the S ābians as a fi ction developed in Christian antipagan polemic.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

amı-r Bahā>addawla), pleased and surprised, offered him a gift on the occasion, but Hilāl refused it, saying that he did not wish to mix worldly things with this event. He named his next son Muhammad.192 Their family continued to fl ourish in Baġdādthereafter, the rest of them presumably converting to Islam over the next generation. Thereafter we never hear of another S ābian among them. A few of his later, Muslim descendants are noted in the Arabic biographical compendia. The latest is Hilāl’s great-great-great-grandson Muhammad (d. 1212).193 By his time, their “pagan” ancestry had become irrelevant. So the Baġdādı- Sābians came to an end early in the eleventh century. Around the same time, the jurist Abu- l-Husayn Ah madal-Mahāmilı- (d. 1024) issued another fatwā against the S ābians, the nature, con-tents, and circumstances of which are unknown.194 Presumably it renewed the opin-ion of al-Istaxrı- as the number of S ābians increasingly dwindled.

At Harrān itself the S ābians persisted through very different political conditions. Syria in the later tenth and eleventh centuries was divided among many indepen-dent rulers in the midst of invasions of the Byzantines and the Fātimid caliphs of Egypt, whereas the Bu-yid amı-rs ruling in the name of the <Abbāsid caliphs lost direct control over the region. Pastoralist bedouins of Syria had been recruited by <Abbāsid governors and the Hamdānid amı-rs (themselves of bedouin origin) for military defense against these outside threats, but the bedouin leaders formed petty dynasties vying for autonomous control of relatively small pieces of territory. The Banu- Numayr were one of fi ve Syrian branches of the Qays; in 990, when their kin the Banu- <Uqayl drove the Hamdānids out of al-Gazīra, the Numayrid leader WaTTābmade himself an independent amı-r with Harrān as his seat of power. The line of WaTTāb was ultimately one of the least important of the Syrian dynasties of this period, but they retained control over Harrān, and at times other neighboring towns such as Edessa, ar-Raqqa, and Saru-g, for almost a century.195 The fate of the S ābiansat Harrān seems to be connected with this Numayrid dynasty.

The S ābians, along with the general population at Harrān, were endangered in 1031, after WaTTāb’s Numayrid successors gave up Edessa to the encroaching forces of the Byzantine general Georgios Maniakes. A very large alliance of Muslim rul-ers of Syrian cities responded with a joint siege of the Byzantines at Edessa, which proved inconclusive.196 About the same time, and perhaps just while the Numayrids were with their allies besieging Edessa, a political crisis ensued at Harrān.197 As the

192. Ibn al-Gawzı-, Muntazam 8.177–179. Yāqu-t (Iršād 7.255.14–15) says slightly differently, “He was a Sābian and then converted to Islam at the end of his life, and his conversion was proper (wa-hasunaislāmuhu-).”

193. F. de Blois, “Sābi>,” EI2 8.672a–675a.194. Chwolsohn 1856: 1.224–225 and 2.582.195. On the Numayrids, see Rice 1952: 74–84 and Bosworth 1996: 93.196. The Armenian account of Matthew of Edessa is fairly detailed (Dostourian 1993: 53–54).197. The events in question are quite complicated. For an overview, see Rice 1952: 77, and

W. A. Graham, “al-Ruhā,” EI2 8.589a–593b (590a–b).

Background

chronicle of the contemporary Christian Yah yā ibn Sa<ı-d of Antioch explains, “Some of the ašrāf 198 wrested control of Harrān. They sought the support of its local militia199 and through them got power over the others. They harmed the population of the city, robbed them, and made their conditions horrible. Most of them left it in fl ight. They also seized a magma< of the S ābians; it was the temple in the name of the moon; they no longer had another temple in the whole world.200

They made it into a stronghold. Many of the S ābians at Harrān, having been a numerous community, converted to Islam out of fear of them.”201 This source does not make it seem as if the Sābians were singled out as victims during this upheaval. All Harrānians not part of the usurpers’ group were at risk. Nevertheless, conversion to Islam apparently was felt by many S ābians to bring an added degree of security. The testimony also indicates that the S ābians of Harrān were no lon-ger numerous after this time, but the wording implies that they did continue to exist as a very small community. It is not clear how long these ašrāf held power, though the Numayrid Šabı-b ibn WaTTāb must have reestablished control of Harrān sometime probably soon thereafter; his family retained control of the city until 1081. It is also unclear whether the remaining Sābians ever regained the same temple.

Our fi nal source of information looks back on the eleventh century from two hundred years later. Ibn Šaddād (1217–1285) wrote a description of the buildings at Harrān, including brief descriptions of formerly S ābian property. Inadvertently he indicates the persistence of Harrānian Sābians at least until 1081. First he mentions a building called al-Mudawwar (“the rotunda”) that had been of old (qadīman) a temple of the S ābians, but which had been rebuilt as a fortress (qal<a) by the Ayyu--bid al-Malik al-<Adil (d. 1218).202 He also says that when <Iyād. ibn Ġanam fi rst cap-tured the city for the Arabs (in the seventh century), the conqueror had taken a great temple of the S ābians and made it into the gāmi< mosque of the city, but “gave them a place in exchange that they built up in Harrān; it was in their control until Yah yāibn aš-Šātir, governor of Harrān, destroyed it on behalf of Šarafaddawla Muslim ibn

198. Ašrāf (sing. šarīf ) are, strictly speaking, people enjoying noble rank due to their descent from the Prophet. See C. van Arendonk and W. A. Graham, “Sharı-f,” EI2 9.329b–337b. The term might refer here simply to “old families” of the town or it might refer to an <Alid movement.

199. On the ahdāT, see Cl. Cahen, “Ahdāth,” EI2 1.256a–b. Another possible interpretation is that the ahdāT here are people of families that came to importance more recently.

200. The word masku-na is equivalent to the Greek oÆjotlåmg, “the inhabited world” (Ullmann 2002–2007: S1.754).

201. Kratchkovsky 1997: 150.15–19: wa-taġallaba <alā Harrāna ba<d. u l-ašrāfi fa-sta<ānu- bi-ahdāTihāwa-taqawwaw bihim <alā ġayrihim wa-stad. āmu- ahla l-madīnati wa-nahabu-hum wa-afsadu- ahwālahumwa-xaraga akTaruhum <anhā hāribīna wa-axaDu- ayd. an magma<an li-s-Sābi>ati wa-huwa l-haykalu llaDī<alā smi l-qamari wa-lam yakun baqiya lahum fī l-masku-nati haykalun siwāhu wa-ga<alu-hu ma<qilanwa-aslama kaTīru-na mimman fī Harrāna mina s-Sābi>ati wa-kānu- gamā<atan wāfi rata l-<adadimaxāfatan minhum.

202. Lloyd and Brice 1955 present numerous photographic plates of the ruins of the qal<a and a plan of the town.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

Qurayš.”203 This Yah yā ibn aš-Šātir had ended the Numayrid reign over Harrān in 1081, working for the <Uqaylid Šarafaddawla Muslim ibn Qurayš, who in turn had the backing of the Salgu-qs at the time. The destruction of this S ābian site must therefore have been in the 1080s, perhaps during the repression of the anti-<Uqaylid Harrānian rebellion incited by a Numayrid in 1083.204 Ibn Šaddād says that the Sā-bians retained control of this place until then, which must mean that some Sābiansstill existed at that time.

There are a several lingering questions about these reports. Was the building they had kept until the 1080s in fact the Mudawwar? Was the building seized by the ašrāfin 1031, presumably returned to them sometime soon after, the same building? Or did they move the locus of their worship to another site after 1031, only to see it destroyed in the 1080s? There is no reason to suppose either of the two sources to be incorrect; Yah yā of Antioch was a contemporary of the fi rst events; Ibn Šaddād had carried out an offi cial inspection of Harrān for al-Malik an-Nāsir, the Ayyu-bid ruler of Aleppo, in 1242 and must have learned the details he presents during that trip.205

Yet the information is not complete enough to identify the sites. What is clear is that the Sābians of Harrān were a vulnerable group in this century of frequent confl ict in Syria, and their vulnerability became critical at times of political upheaval. It was not a strictly intellectual, doctrinal persecution induced by a supposed general “Muslim hostility to freedom of thought” that ended the Sābian community, as some have imagined. It can be inferred rather that the Sābian leaders in Harrān sup-ported the Numayrids, who protected them in turn, because, as far as these few reports indicate, they were put at risk only when the Numayrids lost control of the town. The events of 1031 appear to have been a turning point; S ābians converted in large numbers out of fear to help safeguard their lives and property in the midst of a violent political crisis. It is a matter of speculation how long the Sābians of Harrānsurvived as a sect without any place of worship after the 1080s, but because they are never mentioned again as a living group at a later time, it seems safe to say that ulti-mately the wars ending in the arrival of the Salgu-qs in Syria were instrumental in the defi nitive end of the S ābian community at Harrān. The survival or demise of the

203. Ibn Šaddād 40–42: wa-gaddada gāmi<ahā Nu-ru d-dīni Muhammadu bnu Zankīyi wa-zāda fīhiwa-kāna haykalan li-s-Sābi>ati <azīman axaDahu- minhum <Iyād. u bnu Ġanamin lammā fataha Harrānawā<awwad. ahum <anhu mawd. i<an āxara <amaru-hu bi-Harrāna wa-kāna bi-aydīhim ilā an xarabahu-

Yahyā bnu š-Šātiri mutawallī Harrāna min qibali Šarafi d-dawlati Muslimi bnu Qurayš. Rice 1952: 37–52gives a translation of the whole passage and commentary.

204. Rice 1952: 82; G. Fehervari, “Harrān,” EI2, 3.227b–230b.205. Rice 1952: 36. Much later, ad-Dimašqı- reports, “Harrān was the city of the S ābians. Of their

ancient buildings they retained al-Mudawwar, that is the fort, which was the temple of the moon. The Sābians persisted there until the year 424 (i.e., 1032–1033); at that time the Egyptians conquered this temple, and the Sābians had no temple left” (Chwolsohn 1856: 2.412–413). Ad-Dimašqı-’s report is clearly derivative of Yahyā of Antioch’s and confused, but he might be correct to suppose that it was the temple called al-Mudawwar that was confi scated in 1032. He also knows that it was eventually destroyed by the Mongols (Chwolsohn 1856: 2.397).

Background

Sābians was simply not important enough to attract more historical notice. By the 1080s their community was probably vanishingly small.

Ibn Šaddād mentions that Mahmu-d ibn Zangı-, who took control of Harrān in 1127, rebuilt and expanded the gāmi< mosque of the town, which had been converted from a great Sābian temple at the time of the Arab conquest.206 In 1184, when the Andalusian traveler Ibn Gubayr wrote an account of his earlier visit to Harrān, he described this gāmi< mosque in some detail, marveling at the wide arches and high, thick marble columns around its dome and remarking that the dome was a “Roman construction” (hāDihī l-qubbatu min bunyāni r-Ru-m),207 but he does not mention Sābians once in his description of the town. They had totally disappeared. As for the city itself, the end came in 1271. After Harrān changed hands several times over many decades, the Mongols under Hülegü eventually conquered it. As Ibn Šaddād, a contemporary of these events, wrote, “When the Tatars realized that they could not protect Harrān and those in it, they deported all those in it to Mārdı-n and else-where. They destroyed the gāmi< mosque at Harrān, walled up the city gates, and left it empty but for the birds in their nests.”208

This historical survey provides termini for dating any Harrānian Sābian writings, Hermetic or not, that can be discovered, as well as a picture of their historical con-text. In fact, the S ābians at Harrān itself produced no well-known authors and have left very little literature that has been identifi ed: just parts of two apocalypses of Bābā of Harrān, in Syriac and Arabic, and some scraps of a garbled Arabic transla-tion of a liturgy of sorts that defy scholarly interpretation.209 None of this is Hermetic in any normal sense of the word. On the other hand, the S ābians of §ābit’s family at Baġdād, the preeminent center of Arabic intellectual life throughout the tenth cen-tury, included famous scholars and scientists, renowned authors. Yet hardly any of the known and surviving works of the S ābians of Baġdād have anything in particu-lar to do with their religion. Their own histories, poetry, works of belles lettres and scientifi c writings in Arabic bear no signifi cant, clear sectarian sign yet evident, with the exception of the minimal evidence already discussed. But if any extant Arabic work of Hermes were proved to be of Harrānian Sābian provenance, it would prob-ably belong to the Baġdādı- branch, and to the century and a half from the arrival of §ābit ibn Qurra, sometime before approximately 870, until the death of al-Muh assin, §ābit’s great-great-grandson and the last unconverted Sābian of impor-tance, in 1010. During this period the Sābians of Harrānian origin in Baġdād had their effl orescence and defi ned themselves as members of a doctrinally coherent, ancient, and indeed original religion, amenable to Muslims and recognized by the

206. Rice 1952: 38.207. Ibn Gubayr 246.12–13.208. Trans. Rice 1955: 47, slightly modifi ed.209. The prophecies of Bābā are presented by Rosenthal 1962. Fihrist 390.22–391.25 contains the

liturgy.

Hermes and the Sa-bians of Harra-n

highest authority of the land. Once the S ābians were gone, their religion had its echoes only in works on sectarian classifi cations (fi raq, loosely “heresiography”) as one of the many sects to be refuted anew with every generation, and in the books of history as an ancient curiosity, and in the mere idea that Hermes was an ancient prophet.

3.6 Conclusions

Around 600 ce, during the lifetime of Muh ammad, the Harrānians were known to hold the pagan philosophers in high esteem, including Hermes Trismegistus. The author of the Syriac Prophecies of the Pagan Philosophers cited discourses from the Greek Corpus Hermeticum as texts that might persuade them of Christianity’s truth. However, there is no certain evidence indicating that Hermes or Hermetic works held a special place in their doctrines at this time. Rather, Hermes appears as one of a large number of ancient philosophers, most of them Greek, and at least one of them, Bābā, a local Aramaean fi gure.

In the early ninth century, Theodore Abu- Qurra provides the earliest clear Arabic testimony to a specifi cally astral religion in Harrān, with which Hermes, now their prophet, is explicitly connected. Unfortunately, the development of the Harrānianreligion for the previous two centuries is totally unknown, but one may guess that much had changed in the meanwhile. Around the time that §ābit of Harrān came to Baġdād, the Arab philosopher al-Kindı- (d. ca 870) knew an Arabic Hermetic work related to or resembling in its form the Greek Corpus Hermeticum, and he stated specifi cally that the Harrānians, now known as Sābians, regarded its doc-trines as authoritative. Three and a half centuries later, Ibn al-Qiftı- had heard of dialogues between Hermes and his son Tat, and Ibn al-<Ibrı- claimed to know Syriac Hermetica that fi t the same description. These may well have been the Hermetica present in the Greek Corpus Hermeticum, and possibly even the text from which al-Kindı-’s Arabic version derived. But as far as evidence shows, the Arabic work of Hermes known to al-Kindı- did not survive to be read by other authors or at least to merit mention elsewhere.

The Harrānian Sābians in Baġdād seem consciously to have adopted Islamic norms of the caliphal court in their religious practices. Sinān ibn §ābit ibn Qurra (d. 942/943) was responsible for an Arabic work, The Laws of Hermes, describing this religion. It is possible that he translated it from Syriac. Mubaššir ibn Fātik’s KitābMuxtār al-hikam might incorporate portions of this, by way of unknown interme-diaries, in its description of the religious laws of Hermes (a problem taken up again in section 5.3). In any case, the idea that Hermes was a prophet whom the Harrā-nians acknowledged was widely known to Arabic scholars from the ninth century onward, but they never describe any scriptures of Hermes in enough detail for us to identify them. It appears that very few authors had such texts, if they existed, at their disposal.

Background

Several Arabic Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica survive, including the Kitāb al-Istamāxīs, containing instructions for rituals to procure the powers of the planets. Some of these were cited by the Ġāyat al-hakīm, which associates them with descrip-tions of Harrānian practices, thus possibly tying the Kitāb al-Istamāxīs and its sib-lings to Harrānian Sābianism. Critical editions and thorough study of these Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica are therefore required because they may be the fi rst defi nitely Harrānian Sābian Hermetic works to become known to us. On the other hand, there is the real likelihood that these works have nothing properly to do with Harrān but rather concern “Sābianism,” meaning here not the religion of Harrān as such, but rather “paganism,” as imagined and reconstructed in the ninth and tenth centuries by intellectuals with such interests writing in Arabic.

In the end, there is exceedingly little evidence of Hermetic literature as such among the Harrānian Sābians. What we fi nd instead is just the repeated statement that they considered Hermes as an authority and as a prophet. A few brief notices indicate the existence of discourses of Hermes to his son and between Hermes and Tat, which perhaps points to some of the texts known from the Greek Corpus Hermeticum, or texts related to it, but these were evidently not widely known. No use seems to have been made of these works in Arabic, and they apparently left no trace there insofar as anyone has yet found. Even philosophers like al-Kindı-, who wrote about magic and claims to have examined Hermetic chapters, were really more interested in Euclid, Galen, and Plotinus. By the end of the tenth century, the late antique systematization of Aristotle had come to dominate Arabic philosophy, leaving little room for anything very different that might have been found in an Arabic translation of the Greek Corpus Hermeticum; even if it was more widely known than appearances suggest, it could hardly have offered anything as system-atic and comprehensive as the system of philosophy that eventually came to prevail. Rather it was the Arabic Hermetica concerned with talismans and astrological lore that became well known in the domain of Islam. These texts may well not be the product of Harrānian authorship, as has sometimes been assumed, though only further study will be able to answer this question. It was these talismanic and astro-logical texts, along with Hermetic alchemical texts, and not the Corpus Hermeticummore familiar to scholars today, that gave Hermes his fame in Arabic and, in Latin translation from the twelfth century until Ficino’s time, in Europe. The diffi culty in fi nding any trace of the Greek Corpus Hermeticum in Arabic demonstrates the dif-ference between the Hermetica known in Arabic and those that became famous in early modern Europe.

Appendix to Chapter 3

The Harranians and India

In his studies touching on the h. arra- nians, d. pingree arguedrepeatedly that there was some connection between the pagans of Harrān and India.1

He tended to designate this as an “infl uence” without ever specifying how the sup-posed infl uence actually happened. Nevertheless he concluded that these Syrian pagans had adopted Indian planetary rituals including even some Sanskrit termi-nology.2 As far-fetched as such a connection might seem, the hypothesis of this infl uence seemed to explain a phenomenon that Pingree could not otherwise explain: the appearance of genuinely Indian elements in early Arabic talismanic magic.3 In important contributions he clearly demonstrated that Indian iconography and even Sanskrit words appear as a part of certain rituals in the eleventh-century magic book Ġāyat al-hakīm, which in turn has among its sources the Talismanic Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica.4 The Ġāyat al-hakīm describes these rituals as Sābian.

Pingree’s misstep, in this case, was motivated by two assumptions. First, he assumed that the term Sābian, unqualifi ed, regularly meant specifi cally “Harrānian,” so that these “Sābian” Indian elements must have come from Harrān. The second assumption was not Pingree’s alone, but has been pervasive in modern scholarship for a number of decades: that the Harrānians were “Hermeticists,” so that any Hermetic books, such as the works of Hermes cited in the Ġāyat al-hakīm, must have come from these Harranians. Indeed, a close reading of Pingree’s works shows that he regularly assumed almost any reference to S ābians to indicate the

. 1976: 178–189; 1980: 12; 1989b: 9–11; 2002: 22. His two important articles of 1963, dealing with the transmission of Indian astral sciences, do not yet invoke the Harrānians to explain the Indian elements found in Arabic talismans or astral iconography.

. Pingree 1980: 12: “One is not in a position to decide whether or not Greek planetary worship infl uenced the Indian grahapu-ja, or to what extent that grahapu-ja infl uenced the planetary worship of the Harrānians. One can only conclude that Harrānian worship was undoubtedly infl uenced by Indian practices, at least to the extent of incorporating the Sanskrit names of the planets into the prayers.”

. Nevertheless Pingree 1976 demonstrates a fairly large number of mathematical traditions transmitted from Indian astronomy into Arabic without Harrānian intermediaries.

. Pingree 1976 and 1980.

Background

Harrānians. As seen, however, the term Sābian had acquired a generic sense by the tenth century, and certainly by the time of al-Mas<u-dı- (one of Pingree’s major sources on the problem). Sābian came to mean just “pagan” and little more. The connection between the Indian characteristics of these talismans and S ābianism lies not in Harrān, but rather in the Arabic use of that particular term: it is a neutral, if not sympathetic, designation for poorly understood religions characterized by the veneration of statues and images, such as those of India as well as that of Harrān.5

Moreover, as also seen, there is little evidence to connect the Harrānians with the Talismanic Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica, notwithstanding the Harrānian Sābians’ esteem of Hermes as their prophet. In fact, the more Indian elements we fi nd in such works, the weaker the likelihood of any connection with the Harrāniansbecomes. We are left needing an explanation of just how elements of Indian plane-tary worship were incorporated into talismanic magic in early Arabic texts. The starting point for solving the problem will lie in the study of the many early works of talismanic magic in Arabic and sorting out their chronology.

Pingree’s connection of Harrān with India also led him, in a circuitous way, to suppose the infl uence of the Harrānians on the astrologer Abu- Ma<šar. In his view, this made Abu- Ma<šar a major conduit for Harrānian theories.6 He fi rst formulated a connection between the Harrānians and Abu- Ma<šar on the basis of his analysis of a short passage in al-Hāšimı-’s Kitāb <Ilal az-zīgāt (The Reasons for the Astronomical Tables, written ca 890), in which India plays a very minor role. He seems to have made the connection in two steps, though it is not explained explicitly.7

First step: Al-Hāšimı- (fol. 107v) attributed to a certain “group of Persians” the idea that the concept of a world-year composed of 360,000 solar years was brought to India from Babylon (in the Persian Empire) by Bu-Dāsaf.8 In fact the world-year of 360,000years, as it occurs in Arabic, does appear to derive from India. Bu-Dāsaf, the alleged source of this world-year according to al-Hāšimı-’s unnamed “group of Persians,” is an Arabic rendering (through the intermediary of an Iranian language) of the Sanskrit Buddhist term Bodhisattva. Now, Abu- Ma<šar’s system is based on a world-year of 360,000 solar years, and is called “the world-year of the Persians.”9 Pingree supposed that al-Hāšimı-’s reference to the Persians therefore indicated Abu- Ma<šar, so that this story about Bu-Dāsaf must come from Abu- Ma<šar himself. This would mean that Abu-

Ma<šar claimed that his system derived from Bu-Dāsaf: an Indian source.10

Second step: In order to show that Abu- Ma<šar’s source of information about this was Harrānian, Pingree also cited several Arabic authorities stating that Bu-Dāsaf was

. This was recognized already by, for example, Walbridge 1998: 397–399. . Pingree 2002: 26–29. . Pingree 1968: 405. . This passage is cited in Pingree 1968: 4. . Pingree 1968: 30–31.. It seems more likely that a group of Persians would have claimed that Indian science derived

from Iran. See chapter 2 on the Iranocentric history of science.

Appendix to Chapter 3

a prophet of astrology in India according to the S ābians.11 Assuming that these Arabic authorities were correct, and that they were referring specifi cally to the Sābians of Harrān, Pingree therefore concluded that Abu- Ma<šar must have taken this legend about Bu-Dāsaf, along with the world-year of 360,000 years, from the Harrānians.12

This would strengthen his theory that the Harrānians had adopted Indian practices. He repeated this general conclusion in slightly varying forms in different works.13

The fi rst step described above is a possible conclusion but not proved. Pingree’s second step in this argument is more problematic. The Arabic sources do not sup-port it because, as already indicated repeatedly, references to S ābians in Arabic works are not necessarily also references to Harrānians. Rather, the sources for this step in his argument are just references to “pagans” as imagined by Arabic scholars in the tenth century and later. Pingree cited fi ve passages from three authors to make the argument that the Harrānians followed the Bodhisattva. Here are summaries and brief analyses of their contents to make this clear.

1. Al-Mas<u-dı- (Tanbīh 90.15–91.1) states that Bu-Dāsaf began the S ābian reli-gion, but he does not mention Harrān here. This is thus not a reference to the Harrānian religion but ultimately to Buddhism as understood in an Arabic milieu in the tenth century.

2. Al-Mas<u-dı- (Muru-g Pellat §535 = 1.263.4–14) says that Bu-Dāsaf was the fi rst to give rise to the views of the S ābians of Harrān and of the S ābians of the Marshes (i.e., Mandaeans). It is clear that the Harrānians are given here merely as one example of a S ābian sect, of which there were many. We have no reason to regard Harrānians as the source of the report.

3. Al-Mas<u-dı-, (Muru-g Pellat §1371 = 2.380.13) states that Bu-Dāsaf was the fi rst to give rise to the doctrines or sects (maDāhib) of the S ābians, but again, not the Harrānian sect in particular.

4. Sā<id al-Andalusı- (17.2–3) says that Bu-Dāsaf the Easterner brought the religion of the hunafā>, who are the S ābians. Again, there is no reference to Harrān. As seen above and in section 5.2 in this volume, the term hunafā>refers in such a context only to pagans.

5. Al-Bı-ru-nı- (al-ATār 204.18ff., trans. 186.15ff.) credits Bu-Dāsaf with bringing the Sābian religion and says that the Harrānians are the surviving group of this sect. However, even though his list of Harrānian prophets does not include Bu-Dāsaf, al-Bı-ru-nı- later does go on to say that Hermes might be identifi ed with Idrı-s, but that some of them (perhaps the Harrānians, per-haps the “pagans”) have claimed that Bu-Dāsaf is Hermes (206.8–9, inac-curate trans. by Sachau 188.24–25).

. Pingree 1968: 5n3.. On Abu- Ma<šar as a transmitter of this ultimately Indian doctrine of the world-year, see Pingree

1963a: 243.. Most recently in Pingree 2002: 25–26.

Background

To these sources I add a brief statement from the student’s handbook of Muh ammad ibn Ah mad al-¢wārizmı- (late tenth cent.), that “the remnants of the Sābians are at Harrān and <Irāq [again, the latter group is the Mandaeans], and they claim that their prophet is Bu-Dāsaf who went off to India, while some of them say Hermes.”14 This occurs under an entry on the Sumanı-ya (Šamanı-ya), that is, the Buddhists.

No source unambiguously says that Bu-Dāsaf was a special fi gure for the Harrā-nians in particular, as opposed to the Sābians in general. Even if it did, that would have to be regarded as part of the later explanation of S ābianism frequent in Arabic sources, which states that it was a primordial religion of idolatry common to all ancient people. Instead, all of the accounts make the Bodhisattva the founder of idolatry, the religion of the Sābians (= pagans) in general, imagined as a primordial religion. In this case, the real, or at least the original, reference is to Buddhists, as understood or misunderstood by medieval Arabic scholars, and not to Harrānians. Similarly, one can see how the word is used later for another idolatrous group, this time the ancient Egyptians, by Ibn al-Qiftı- (348.5–7): “The Egyptians long ago were Sābians (= pagans) worshipping idols and cultivating temples; then they converted to Christianity when the Christian religion appeared.” The term Sābian was simi-larly used to refer to the ancient Greeks15 as well and to all ancient idolaters. A more refi ned picture might be produced by a detailed study of the development of the term Sābian to indicate a member of the primordial religion of idolatry in all its sects, showing its historical development and taking into account the Christian, Muslim, and Zoroastrian etiologies of idolatry. As I currently understand the issue, it seems to me that this idea of Sābianism is a construct in Arabic literature dating to the ninth century that became widespread in the tenth. It is conceivable that the Harrānian Sābians in Baġdād were the ones who fi rst promoted the idea.16 But in any case, it is not safe to conclude on the basis of the few vague and confl icting reports cited above about S ābianism, a subject of confusion for more than a thou-sand years, that the Harrānians transmitted to Abu- Ma<šar a system of astronomy or astrology attributed to Bu-Dāsaf, or that the Harrānians had adopted Indian religious practices.

. Mafātīh al-<ulu-m, bāb 2, fasl 5.. See section 3.2 in this volume.. On this possibility see Pingree 2002: 35.

PART II

History of the Arabic Hermes

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4

The Three Hermeses

From andalusia to india, when a pre-modern arabic scholar read a treatise attributed to Hermes, he understood its contents to be a part of an extremely ancient wisdom transmitted from many centuries ago, long before the revelation of Islam. To his knowledge, the Hermes who wrote the text could be one of three different individuals, each of them a great sage of the remote past. The fi rst of them founded the sciences before the great Flood; the second, a Babylonian, lived after the Flood; and the third lived later in Egypt. Medieval Arabic histories gave an especially prominent place to the fi rst Hermes, the antediluvian prophet of science, reporting that he received revelations from God and ensured the preserva-tion of knowledge through the cataclysmic Flood through his Egyptian inscriptions. It is a peculiar historical accident that the messenger god of Homeric Olympus became, after long centuries, in Arabic accounts, not only the fi rst philosopher, phy-sician, and astrologer, but also a true prophet, identifi ed with the Qur>ānic fi gure Idrīs.

These legends about Hermes, or rather the Hermeses,1 were passed on from the Arabophone countries of the Mediterranean and Southwest Asia to Latin Europe, where they formed in turn part of the background for the reception of Hermetic texts in Latin.2 Knowledge of a version of this legend of the ancient Hermes may have helped to induce Marsilio Ficino in the fi fteenth century to set aside his trans-lation of Plato’s works and give precedence to the newly-discovered Corpus Hermeticum, for Hermes was considered a bearer of a primordial philosophy more ancient and closer to God than that of Plato.3

But why these three Hermeses? The task of this chapter is to uncover the origins of the triple biography. Some modern scholars have thought that these tales resulted

1. Although the plural “Hermeses” sounds a bit strange, it is a regular form more recognizable in English than Greek Hermai (Latin Hermae) or Arabic Harāmisa.

2. On Latin versions of this Arabic legend see Burnett 1976 and Delp 2006: 5–9.3. Ficino fi nished this translation in 1471 (Faivre 1995: 184).

History of the Arabic Hermes

merely from an imaginative interpretation of the Greek epithet trismegistos, most commonly rendered in Arabic as al-muTallaT bi-l-h ikma (“triplicate in wisdom”).4

One has even proposed the idea of three Hermeses in light of theories that postulate a connection between a theoretical mythic archetype of Hermes and the number three.5 I will show, however, that the Arabic biographies of Hermes are really continuations of specifi c and identifi able traditions already developed in pre-Islamic late antiquity, synthesized together in Arabic in ways refl ecting a genuine effort to understand the pre-Islamic past. At the same time I will prove that late antique Greek chronography was an important component of the Arabic reception of ancient texts.

4.1 The Earliest Form of the Arabic Legend of Three Hermeses

The earliest extant version of the Hermes legend in Arabic is found in the history of philosophy and medicine written by the Andalusian physician Ibn Gulgul of Cordova (d. after 994). In his Kitāb Tabaqāt al-atibbā> wa-l-hukamā> (The Gene-rations of the Physicians and Philosophers), composed in 987, Ibn Gulgul stated that he took his account of the Hermeses from the Kitāb al-Ulūf (The Book of the Thousands) of Abū Ma<šar of Balx (d. 886), the most infl uential astrologer of the Middle Ages. This book, the Thousands, is the main source of the Hermes legend in Arabic, cited by numerous later historians and biographers. Unfortunately, the Thousands survives today only in excerpts and very much abbreviated summaries, although David Pingree was able to reconstruct a good deal of its mathematical contents in his fundamental work The Thousands of Abū Ma<shar (1968).

The Thousands of Abū Ma<šar was a work of historical astrology. The investiga-tion of the Arabic legends of Hermes must therefore begin with this book and its genre. Historical astrology was developed on the basis of Greek and Indian astro-logical systems by Iranian astrologers of the Sasanian period (third–seventh cent.) who sought to interpret historical events of the past and to predict events of the future in terms of major astrological conjunctions, particularly of Jupiter and Saturn.6 Such explanations were made to fi t into a chronological scheme that

4. Pingree 1968: 14 suggested that this was an invention of Abū Ma<šar. “Abū Ma<shar, presumably thinking of the epithet trismegistos, developed the myth further by hypothesizing three Hermes . . .” Interpretation of the trismegistos epithet may have been a factor in the development of the story but does not explain the origin of the specifi c elements of the three individual linked Hermes stories.

5. Sladek 1988.6. See Pingree 1963a, especially 245, and Pingree, “Astrology and Astronomy III. Astrology in

Islamic Times,” in EIr, 2.868b–871b, esp. 870. Another short and clear explanation of the theory of conjunctions in historical astrology is Pingree’s “Qirān,” EI2, 5.130b–131a. For a detailed study of AbūMa<šar’s historical astrology in another work using similar concepts, see Burnett and Yamamoto 2000:1.573–613. For the more complicated historical astrology of the Thousands in particular, see Pingree 1968: 57–68.

The Three Hermeses

sometimes claimed to give the duration of the world, from Creation to the end of time (or of the present cycle of time). In this way the endeavor of historical astrol-ogy brought astrology and chronography together. Its main goal was to show that the major changes of history corresponded to cycles of movement of the planets and stars, thereby explaining the past and predicting future changes in dynasty, the appearance of new religions, and major disasters such as universal fl oods. The chronological place of the Hermeses was especially important in the historical astrology of Abū Ma<šar both because the fi rst two Hermeses circumscribe the date of the Flood, the most important point in Abū Ma<šar’s timeline of history and the era from which he dated events, and also because the original, antediluvian Hermes was the founder of astrology, and hence effectively the ancient source of Abū Ma<šar’s knowledge, giving his own practice the authority of antediluvian and even revealed wisdom.7

Before further discussion, it is necessary to take a close look at the text of the leg-ends of Hermes from Abū Ma<šar’s Thousands. Ibn Gulgul’s account of the Hermeses is the earliest extant in Arabic, but it was also widely repeated in slightly altered forms by later authors, including almost every historian of science in Arabic after him, either directly from the Thousands or through an intermediary. A few later works cited Ibn Gulgul by name for their version. Although the task of tracking the three Hermes stories in Arabic is greatly simplifi ed by the identifi cation of the Thousandsof Abū Ma<šar as the Arabic source from which these legends derive, one should keep in mind that there were also at least two abridgements of the Thousands, one of which, made by Abū Ma<šar’s own student, is lost.8 It is possible that those who cited the surviving accounts of Hermes sometimes knew them by way of the lost abridge-ment. Nevertheless, all of the surviving versions of the Arabic legend of three Hermeses are to a great extent similar to each other, giving essentially the same infor-mation with slightly different wording. Because many of the same words and phrases occur in each account, the relationship between all the surviving versions is clearly apparent. The account follows below in Arabic and in my English translation. Ibn Gulgul is taken as the base, with variants from two other sources indicated in notes to the English translation by the following sigla:

G = Ibn Gulgul (d. after 994), Kitāb Tabaqāt al-atibbā> wa-l-hukamā> (The Generations of the Physicians and Philosophers), 5–10.

7. See Pingree 1968: 13–18, and the chart on 19.8. The lost one is by “Ibn al-Māzyār,” discussed below; this was described by al-Mas<ūdī as a

muntaxab, or selections of important passages (al-Mas<ūdī, Murūg, Pellat §1419 = 2.408.11–12). The other extant summary, the Muntaxab Kitāb al-Ulūf by as-Sigzī, is outlined by Pingree 1968: 23–25.I have inspected a manuscript copy of this latter Muntaxab in British Library Or. 1346, 80b–91b; it is a concise outline of the astrological theory and method of the Kitāb al-Ulūf without any of the chronographic data that the original work contained or the story of Hermes. A section of it is translated into English by Kennedy and van der Waerden 1963.

History of the Arabic Hermes

Z = Ibn al-Qiftī (d. 1248), Kitāb Ixbār al-<ulamā> bi-axbār al-hukamā> (Apprising the Scholars of Reports about the Philosophers), fi rst Hermes 6–7, second Hermes 346–7,third Hermes 347–50. This work is known only in the epitome of az-Zawzanī, Kitābal-Muntaxabāt al-multaqatāt min Kitāb Ixbār . . . (Selections Garnered from “Reports for Scholars about the Philosophers”) made in 1249. It cites Ibn Gulgul explicitly as the source of its reports on the fi rst Hermes .9 The excerpts on the second and third Hermeses relate the text given by Ibn Gulgul almost exactly, with the addition of some notes on the books of these latter Hermeses.

IAU = Ibn Abī Usaybi<a (d. 1270), Kitāb Tabaqāt al-atibbā> (The Generations of the Physicians), 1.16.24–17.16. IAU seems to have used Ibn Gulgul’s history of the Hermeses, although he must have had access to sections of the Thousands in some other form, or in excerpts from other works, since he cites an otherwise unknown passage of the Thousands just a page before, IAU15.7ff.

Unless indicated, G, Z, and IAU agree (except in a few unnoted insignifi cant variants).

9. The account of the First Hermes begins, “Sulaymān ibn @assān, known as Ibn Gulgul, said . . . ” and closes with, “This ends Ibn Gulgul’s statement” (inqadā kalām Ibn Gulgul).

10. ���� supplied by IAU16.26.

The Three Hermeses

Ibn Gulgul12

1. Abū Ma<šar al-Balxī the astrologer said in the Book of the Thousands: “The Hermeses are three. The fi rst of them13 is Hermes who was before the Flood. The signifi cance of “Hermes” is a title, like saying “Caesar” and “¢usraw” [which are titles]. The Persians named him Wīwanghān, meaning “the Just,”14

in their biographies of the kings (fī siyarihā). He is the one to whose philosophy the@arrānians adhere.15 The Persians16 state that his grandfather was GayūmarT,that is Adam. The Hebrews state that he is Enoch, which, in Arabic, is Idrīs.”

2. Abū Ma<šar said, “He was the fi rst to discuss17 the celestial phenomena of the movements of the stars, and his grandfather GayūmarT taught him the hours of the nychthemeron. He is the fi rst who built temples and glorifi ed God in them. He was the fi rst to investigate medicine and to discuss it. He com-posed for his contemporaries odes in poetic meter18 and well-known verses19

11. Suffi x pronoun -hū supplied by IAU17.9.12. Other English translations of this passage, along with different analyses, are found in Plessner

1954a: 50–52; Pingree 1968:14–15 (First Hermes only); A. Fodor 1970: 336–337 (gives the translation of the version in IAU). There is an Italian translation in Pappacena 2004, 266–267, together with a general summary of the Hermes legends in Arabic.

13. IAU16.24–25 adds here “he who is the Triplicate in Blessings” (al-muTallaT bi-n-ni<am). It is not clear whether this is IAU’s insertion or original in the Thousands.

14. The text of G gives >bnghD (Z6.13, >yhHl; IAU16.26 >llhgd wa-tafsīruhū Dū-<adl “>llhgd, which means the Just”). Pingree recognized that “the name is clearly identical with Awanjhān = Wīwanjhān, the father of Jamshīd according to Ibn Nawbakht, which is a mistake for Ūshhan = Hūshank,” Pingree 1968:14–15. On the name Wīwanjhān, see Justi 1895: 144a–b and 274a. The Muntaxab S iwān al-Hikma contains the same words (ed. Badawī 184.5, ed. Dunlop 1262). Pēšdād was a title of Hoshang, though eventually all the earliest kings of Iran were called Pēšdādians. The word was interpreted in Iran by folk etymology to mean “just,” although actually meaning “fi rst created,” cf. Avestan *paraбāta). On Hoshang, the discoverer of fi re in medieval Iranian legend, and the interpretation of his epithet see CHI 3(1), 420.

15. IAU16.26 “he is the one whose prophethood the @arrānians declare.”16. “The Persians” supplied here by IAU 16.26; G lacks this word.17. Z6.15 “to prognosticate from” (taHakkama fī).18. IAU16.30 “many books in poetic meter.”19. IAU16.31 “and well-known rhymes in the language of his contemporaries.”

History of the Arabic Hermes

on terrestrial and celestial things. He was the fi rst to give advance warning of the Flood, and he thought that a celestial catastrophe of fi re or water would overwhelm the earth. His home was Upper Egypt; he chose that [place] and built the pyramids and cities of clay there. He feared that knowledge would pass away in the Flood, so he built the monumental temples (al-barābī);20 it is a mountain known as birbā in Axmīm,21 which he chiseled out, portray-ing in it in carvings all the arts and their uses, and pictures of all the instru-ments of the artisans, indicating the features of the sciences by illustrations,22

out of desire thereby to preserve the sciences forever for those after him, fearing that all trace of it would perish from the world.”

3. It is reported by the account transmitted from the early Muslims (as-salaf )that Idrīs was the fi rst to study books, to investigate the sciences. God sent thirty scrolls (s.ahīfa) down to him. He was the fi rst to sew clothing and to wear it. God raised him to a high place.23

4. Abū Ma<šar told some absurd reports about him, of which I related the most true24 and most likely. Success is in God the Exalted.

5. “The Second Hermes, of the people of Babylon: He lived in the city of the Chaldaeans, Babylon, after the Flood in the time of Naburīzbānī, who was the fi rst to build the city of Babylon after Nimrod son of Kush.25 He was skilled in the knowledge of medicine and philosophy, knew the natures of numbers, and his student was26 Pythagoras the Arithmetician. This Hermes renewed the knowledge of medicine, philosophy, mathematics that was lost during the Flood at Babylon.” That is what Abū Ma<šar stated.

6. This city of the Chaldaeans was the city of the philosophers of the people of the East. Their philosophers were the fi rst to make defi nitions and to organize laws; they were the philosophers of the Persian sages.

20. This was an Egyptian loan word for temple in Arabic and used to refer to all the great stone monuments of Egypt (Coptic pRpe p- erpe). See G. Wiet, “Barbā,” EI2, 1.1038b–1039a.

21. Akhmim, the Panopolis of Roman Imperial times. The famous Egyptian temple there was fi nally dismantled for materials to build a madrasa in the fourteenth century (G. Wiet, “Akhmīm,” EI2, 1.330a).

22. IAU17.3 adds “for those after him.”23. Paraphrase of Qur>ān 19:57; (56) wa-Dkur fī l-kitābi Idrīsa innahū kāna siddīqan nabīyan (57)

wa-rafa<nāhu makānan <alīyan, “And mention Idrīs in the Book. He was true, a prophet. We raised him to a high place.”

24. Reading aHaqqahā (Z) rather than axaffahā (“the least signifi cant of them”).25. Nimrod son of Kush is the founder of Babylon according to the Hebrew Bible (Genesis 10:8–10).

Evidently a tradition with its roots in Christian Greek chronography was also available to Abū Ma<šar. On his chronographic sources, see section 4.5. It is probable that the king intended here, whose name is distorted in the text, is Nabukhodonosorus (Nabuchadnezzer II, r. 604–562 bce, famous from the book of Daniel), whose building activities at Babylon, including the Hanging Gardens, were related by Berossus in a report known from a citation appearing both in Josephus’ Antiquitates Judaicae(10.220–228) and from George Syncellus (416–418) (for English translation and notes, see Verbrugghe and Wickersham 1996: 57–59). The name Naburīzbānī is omitted in some later citations of this story, and the second, Babylonian Hermes himself is made into the one who built Babylon after Nimrod: Ibn al-Qiftī, 346.17–18; Ibn al-<Ibrī, Ta’rīx, 11.14–15.

26. Following IAU17.9; the omission of a letter makes him the student of Pythagoras in G.

The Three Hermeses

7. The Third Hermes: He lived in the city of Egypt. He was after the Flood. He is the author of Poisonous Animals (K. al-@ayawān Dawātas-sumūm). He was a philosopher and a physician, knowledgeable in the natures of lethal drugs and infectious27 animals. He traveled around in different countries, wandering in them, knowing the foundations of cities, their natures, and the natures of their peoples. He is the author of a valuable discourse on the art of alchemy; part of it is related to crafts like glass, stringing precious stones, implements of clay, and such things.

8. He had a student who is known, whose name was Asclepius.28 There are absurd reports and many stories about him; we will seek to procure the ones that are true from what is available in well-known books.

In the English translation above, I have enumerated paragraphs to indicate what I think are its separate parts, but these divisions do not occur in the original. Paragraphs 1 and 2 are both explicitly quotations from Abū Ma<šar. Paragraph 3 may or may not be by him, but gives a report known to Muslims since the early eighth century (due to Wahb ibn Munabbih, discussed below). Paragraph 4 clearly marks the omission of material originally in Abū Ma<šar’s Thousands, evidently regarded as fabulous, and paragraph 5 returns us to the quotation of the original text. This includes material defi nitely derived from a late antique Greek work of chronology, because it contains information transmitted from Berossus. The end of 5 is marked as the end of the quotation from Abū Ma<šar. Paragraph 6 seems to be an inserted explanation of the reference to the city of the Chaldaeans in paragraph 5. Paragraph 7,on the third Hermes, is not explicitly named as derived from Abū Ma<šar, and this fact will require discussion below.

A number of derivative sources also present different abridged or differently phrased versions of the same triple Hermes tale. A couple of sentences about Hermes in the Muntaxab Siwān al-hikma, an abridgement of a gnomological history of Greek and Arabic philosophers written ca 1000, are derived from Abū Ma<šar’s Hermes story.29 The erudite aT-§a<ālibī of Nīšāpūr (d. 1038) relates Abū Ma<šar’s story of the fi rst Hermes almost totally reworded but with hardly anything new added.30 The Christian scholar Abū l-Farag Ġrīġūriyūs Ibn al-<Ibrī (Bar <Ebrāyā)(d. 1286) introduced his brief reference to the three Hermeses with no more specifi c

27. IAU17.13 mu>Diya, “harmful;” G mu<diya (infectious?).28. IAU17.16 adds “His residence was in Syria (aš-Šām).”29. Muntaxab Siwān al-Hikma ed. Dunlop, section 90, lines 1261–1268; ed. Badawī 184.4–13.30. “The fi rst person who expounded the science of the stars, pointed out the patterns of the

heavenly spheres, plotted the paths of the stars, revealed their various infl uences on human affairs and brought forward information on the wonders of their construction, was Idris, peace be upon him. He was also the fi rst to use writing and to sew garments, whereas previously people had only worn skins and hides; and he was the fi rst to make use of weapons, make war and capture people as slaves.” Translation by Bosworth 1968: 39. Cf. aT-§a<ālibī 1960: 6.5–10.

History of the Arabic Hermes

attribution than “it is said.”31 Although he is able to cite the name Trismegistus fairly intact (Trīsmīgīstīs), and to give a Christian exegesis of the name—that Trismegistus was so called because he described the creator’s three essential characteristics: exis-tence, wisdom, and life32—his account is derived mostly from Abū Ma<šar’s. The Išrāqī (Illuminationist) philosopher aš-Šahrazūrī (fl . late thirteenth century) com-piled many reports and sayings of Hermes in his history of philosophy, at the head of which he gave a slightly edited version of the same legend of three Hermeses.33

The Egyptian polygraph as-Suyūtī (1445–1505) referred to the story in his treatise on the pyramids.34 In short, the stories of Hermes originating with Abū Ma<šar were widely known over many centuries and indeed were part of common scholarly knowledge.

Only a few versions of the story of the fi rst Hermes appear to contain informa-tion that might have belonged to the original of Abū Ma<šar not related by Ibn Gulgul. The Muntaxab Siwān al-hikma (discussed at greater length in section 5.3)cites Abū Ma<šar by name as its source on the identity of Hermes and relates a slightly variant version of paragraph 2 of the Hermes stories given above. Without any break, the Muntaxab also adds a little more information; it is possible, though not certain, that this also derives from Abū Ma<šar.35

31. Ibn al-<Ibrī, Ta>rīx, 11.8ff. It is likely that Ibn al-<Ibrī was using Sā<id al-Andalusī as his source on the Hermeses. He cites Sā<id by name as an authority elsewhere in the work and gives at least one important variant reading following S ā<id (al-gawāhir instead of al-ašyā>; see note 36 below).

32. Cf. similar Christian explanations of the title trismegistos, seeing in it trinitarian and other meanings: Malalas 26 (Scott 4.233), Chronicon Paschale 85, John of Antioch 6, Cedrenus (Scott 4.235), Suda (under <Eqlû| ¡ Sqirlåcirso|; also Scott 4.235).

33. aš-Šahrazūrī, Kitāb Nuzhat al-arwāH, 131.3–134.2.34. Nemoy 1939: 27.35. Muntaxab Badawī 184.7–13, Dunlop 1264–1268.

[Abū-Ma<šar also stated that] he [i.e., Hermes] knew that a heavenly ruin would befall the inhabitants of the earth after his passing from an inundation of waters and burning by fi res and heat, so he and his contemporaries in the region of the west that he inhabited—in the land called Greece (Yūnān)between upper Egypt adjacent to the Sūdān and Alexandria and lower [Egypt]—built pyramids of stone on the mountain peaks and elevated places, each pyramid being between thirty and fi fty cubits, broad at the top. In their construction they made two pyramids among them with higher tops.

The Three Hermeses

There are essentially only two new pieces of information supplied here. The fi rst locates Hermes generally in Egypt, mistakenly named Greece or considered a part of Greece. The second adds more details about the pyramids, and it includes other contemporaries of Hermes in their construction. It is diffi cult to know whether these are later additions or part of Abū Ma<šar’s original account.

Most of the other versions of the Hermes legends in Arabic are just reworkings of the version presented by Ibn Gulgul, known at one or more removes. Below I present as a representative of these later versions just one of the more interesting uses of the account by Sā<id al-Andalusī (1029–1070), qād. ī of Toledo, who wrote an infl uential history of science organized by nation. According to his arrangement of the data, science passed over the centuries from the Eastern nations toward the Western nations, culminating, not surprisingly, in the Andalusia of his day. AbūMa<šar is the only authority he names specifi cally in his account of Hermes.

S. ā<id al-Andalusī, 18.18–19.6 (ed. Cheikho).[Section on the Sciences among the Chaldaean Nation]According to us, the most famous and most respected of their [the Chaldaeans’] scholars is Hermes the Babylonian. He was in the time of the Greek philosopher Socrates. Abū Ma<šar Ga<far ibn Muhammad ibn <Umar al-Balxī stated in the Book of the Thousands that he was the one who restored many of the books of the ancients on the astral sciences and other kinds of philosophy that had perished, and that he composed many books on various sciences. Abū Ma<šar said, “The Hermeses (al-Harāmis) are a group of differ-ent individuals. Among them is the Hermes who was before the Flood, who the Hebrews claim is the prophet Enoch, who is Idrīs, peace be upon him. After the Flood were a number of them [scil. the Hermeses], knowledgeable and discerning. The preeminent of these were two, the fi rst of whom was the Babylonian we mentioned, and the second was the student of the philoso-pher (al-hakīm) Pythagoras, and an inhabitant of Egypt.”

Sā<id said, “Information has reached us about the doctrine (maDhab) of the Babylonian Hermes indicating his preeminence in science. This includes his doctrine on projection of the rays of the stars and his doctrine on the unifor-mity of the Houses of the celestial sphere. It also includes his books on astrology such as the Book of Latitude and the Book of Longitude and The Rod of Gold.”

39.7–16. [Section on the Sciences among the Egyptian Nation. In this section italics are used to illustrate the correspondence between this source and the account as presented by Ibn Gulgul.]

A group of scholars reported that it was from the First Hermes, who lived in highest Upper Egypt, that all of the sciences that appeared before the Flood came. He is the one whom the Hebrews name Enoch, son of Jared, son of Mahala’il, son of Cainan, son of Enosh, son of Seth, son of Adam, upon

History of the Arabic Hermes

him be peace. He is the prophet Idrīs, peace be upon him. They said that hewas the fi rst to discuss celestial substances36 and the movements of stars,37 andhe is the fi rst who built temples and glorifi ed God the Exalted in them. He was the fi rst to investigate medicine.38 He composed for his contemporaries odes in poetic meter on terrestrial and celestial things. And they say that he was the fi rst to give advance warning of the Flood, and he thought that ruin would overtake the earth from water and fi re. 39 He feared that knowledge would pass away and that the arts would perish in the Flood, so he built the pyramids and the mon-umental temples in highest Upper Egypt. He portrayed in them all the arts and the instruments, indicating the features of the sciences by illustrations,40

out of desire thereby to preserve the sciences forever for those after him, fearing that all trace of it would perish from the world.

40.5–7.Among the ancient scholars in Egypt is the Second Hermes. He was a phi-losopher, traveling in the lands, wandering the cities, knowing the founda-tions of the [cities?]41 and the natures of the peoples. He wrote a great book on the art of alchemy and a book on poisonous animals.

It can be seen from the other relations of the legend that Sā<id al-Andalusī has pre-sented a heavily edited version of the passages on the Hermeses from the Thousandsof Abū Ma<šar, arranged to fi t his program of giving the history of science in order by nation. Therefore the fi rst Hermes appears in the section on Egypt, the second, Babylonian, Hermes is in the section on the Chaldaean nation, and the third (whom he calls the second) is again in the section on Egypt. In all, it does not add much of importance to the present discussion besides showing one example of how easily this triple biography of Hermes could be altered and adapted in later works. However, there are a few details deserving emphasis. First, according to this account, “a group of scholars” related the tale of the fi rst Hermes. This indicates that by the time of S ā<id, the eleventh century, the report of Abū Ma<šar was in fairly wide cir-culation and had been cited by a number of others. Second, he states that the Babylonian Hermes recovered the knowledge that was lost in the Flood, emphasiz-ing the relationship between the fi rst and second Hermeses in Abū Ma<šar’s account.

36. gawāhir ��� , substances; a misreading for HawādiT ����, events.37. The passage referring to Iranian national history has been omitted (“and that his grandfather

GayūmarT taught him the hours of the nychthemeron”).38. Omitted: “and to discuss it.”39. The following was omitted because Sā<id had already mentioned it: “His home was Upper

Egypt; he selected that [place] and built the pyramids and cities of clay there.”40. Many words were edited out in this passage.41. The edition reads, “knowing the foundations of their people,” clearly an error. Cf. the distantly

parallel text of G above: “He was skilled in the knowledge of medicine and philosophy, knew the natures of numbers . . . ”

The Three Hermeses

We turn now to examine the contents of the tale more critically. One of the great puzzles about Hermes in Arabic is the appearance of three different fi gures of the same name, all recognized as important sages. In our base account, the earliest extant one, presented by Ibn Gulgul, the fi rst two Hermeses are connected together in their narratives in that the second, Babylonian, Hermes recovered the knowledge, lost in the Flood, that the fi rst, antediluvian, Upper Egyptian Hermes tried to pre-serve in writings and carvings. The third Hermes is said to be an Egyptian from later times, and he appears to be unrelated to the fi rst two. Moreover, only the fi rst two Hermes stories are connected explicitly with the name Abū Ma<šar. These are the initial clues. How, then, did the idea of three Hermeses originate?

In his 1968 work on Abū Ma<šar, David Pingree proposed an answer to this ques-tion, one that has been widely accepted since then. He argued, in what must be described as a convoluted manner,42 that this legend of Hermes was developed by Abū Ma<šar himself under the infl uence of his predecessor Ibn Nawbaxt. If I have understood it, his case is as follows. The astrological book called the Pentateuch of Dorotheus of Sidon (fi rst cent.), which survives only in the Arabic translation of a Middle Persian recension translated from the original Greek, is addressed, in the extant version, to Hermes, the son of Dorotheus, who is king of Egypt (discussed earlier in section 2.2). But, wrote Pingree, this fi gure of Hermes was “perverted by Ibn Nawbakht, under @arrānian infl uences, into that of the Babylonian sage who becomes king of Egypt and brings learning to that land,” in Ibn Nawbaxt’s Kitāban-Nhmt>n.43 He went on to write that “Abū Ma<shar, presumably thinking of the epithet trismegistos, developed the myth further by hypothesizing three Hermeses, of whom the last two correspond to Ibn Nawbakht’s Babylonian-Egyptian sage.”44

Pingree characterized Abū Ma<šar as a charlatan attempting to foist a total fabrica-tion, a “brazen imposture,” on his contemporaries.45

I believe that this is mostly incorrect. The verdict on Ibn Nawbaxt was certainly false because, as Pingree discovered for himself when he edited it (at the latest), a reference to another Hermes Trismegistus “King of Egypt” is found in the very book of Dorotheus already mentioned.46 Certainly Ibn Nawbaxt, who had the Pentateuch of Dorotheus at his disposal, should also be credited with awareness of this reference.47 The only thing that Ibn Nawbaxt could have added is that Hermes was Babylonian in origin. It seems to be this Babylonian epithet that is supposed to

42. As Toomer wrote in his review of the book (1970: 156), “Anyone not already familiar with the subject matter would probably fi nd most of it unintelligible. Even for the initiate the author’s allusiveness is baffl ing . . . The general organization of the material seems to be more for the author’s convenience than for the reader’s.”

43. Pingree 1968: 14. This passage by Ibn Nawbaxt was studied in chapter 2.44. Ibidem.45. Idem, vii–viii.46. Dorotheus Sidonius, Carmen Astrologicum, ed. D. Pingree, 2.20.1. ka-mā qāla l-mušarrafu

l-maHmūdu bi-TalāTi tabā>i<a Hirmisu maliku Misra.47. Pingree 1968: 11.

History of the Arabic Hermes

have constituted “@arrānian infl uence—direct or indirect,”48 although one is at a loss to demonstrate how that could be, or why one should blame the @arrānians for it. Pingree’s tendency to exaggerate the importance of the @arrānians in ninth-cen-tury intellectual life has already been encountered in chapter 3. Moreover, as shown in chapter 2, the reference to Babylon points to the idea that this Hermes was from the capital of the Iranian realm, where Dahāk gathered the world’s scholars before they were dispersed to different lands, including Egypt. There is no trace of the idea of multiple Hermeses in Ibn Nawbaxt’s account. Instead, there is the view that Hermes was really originally from Babylon, the capital of the Persian Empire. This Iranocentric view of the history of science is attested in other sources, too, as already seen. Ibn Nawbaxt can therefore hardly have been responsible for “perverting” the legend of Hermes “under @arrānian infl uence.” It seems rather that he was present-ing an Iranian tradition that made the astrologer Hermes a Babylonian so that the Iranians could claim him for their own.49 This point of view must have come natu-rally to Ibn Nawbaxt, since he was himself an Iranian scholar and a translator of Middle Persian books into Arabic at a time when Arabic-speaking Muslims were still a small ruling minority. He is indeed one of the main sources about this Iranocentric history of science.50 But it is true that the Babylonian epithet of his Hermes was later to be applied to the second Hermes of Abū Ma<šar.51

As for the charge against Abū Ma<šar, that he fabricated the legend of the three Hermeses, I will show in the next sections that he was actually just combining a couple of late antique chronographic traditions with the Iranian legend. He is almost certainly responsible for the wording of the Arabic version of the biogra-phies of the fi rst two Hermeses that we possess in his name, but not for that of the third Hermes. The next step is to look for ancient sources suggesting more than one Hermes.

4.2 Ancient Greek Antecedents to the Arabic Legend

The preservation of the ancient writings in Egypt through catastrophes is a motif at least as old as Plato’s Timaeus (23a). The Egyptian Theuth (Thoth), later identifi ed with Hermes, appears briefl y in Plato’s Philebus (274c–d) as the discoverer of math-ematics and astronomy and the revealer of writing to Ammon. But the role of

48. Idem, 10.49. Pingree seems to have thought that the alleged @arrānian reason for making the second

Hermes a Babylonian would be for “thereby including Mesopotamia in the religion of S ābianism” (Pingree 2002: 25).

50. Fihrist 333.12–16 (ed. Flügel 274.8–12); Ibn al-Qiftī, 255.1–11 (and at 409.3–13 the amusing story is related from Ibn Nawbaxt’s own account of how his cumbersome Iranian name—given as ¢warrašāDmāh TīmāDāh Mābāzār Dubād ¢usrawānahšāh—was replaced by the caliph al-Mansūr with the polite Arabic kunya Abū Sahl).

51. On the references to Hermes in Dorotheus, see section 2.3.

The Three Hermeses

Hermes as the preserver of this Egyptian knowledge is not found in Plato. It is implied, rather, in the Greek Hermetica, where Isis teaches Horus that Hermes saw and understood everything, and wrote it down in charaktēres (Egyptian hiero-glyphs) that he then hid. Hermes had successors, she says, in Tat, Asclepius-Imouthes, and Ptah.52 In the ancient Greek Hermetica themselves there is a notion of multiple Hermeses, though it is not possible to demonstrate that this was transmitted directly in translation to Arabic authors. One of the most widely cited Hermetic books of antiquity, The Perfect Discourse, better known today in its Latin version as Asclepius,mentions an “ancestor” Hermes. Originally written in Greek, The Perfect Discoursewas used by early Christians (e.g., it was known in some form by Lactantius ca 310 ce)53 and was translated into Latin and Coptic. The Greek text survives only in citations by other authors, whereas the Coptic survives only in a partial translation; only the Latin version preserves the passage now relevant.54 One fi nds Hermes Trismegistus there addressing his three disciples, Asclepius, Ammon, and Tat. The discourse is particularly directed toward Asclepius and continues in dialogue with him. Hermes here refers to Asclepius’ ancestor (avus) who fi rst discovered medicine (medicinae primus inventor) and furthermore to his own namesake, the ancient Hermes, whose ancestral name he himself has (Hermes cuius avitum mihi nomen est).55 Here is evidence in one of the early Hermetica for the recognition of two Hermeses, and also, perhaps, of multiple Asclepii (Asclepius being Hermes’ disciple also in Arabic sources), written at the latest in the third century ce.56 But because the work itself left no trace in Arabic literature, and Abū Ma<šar shows no sign of having encountered any part of it, we can set it aside and continue the search. In any case, it is important to keep in mind that multiple Hermeses were conceived to exist long before Abū Ma<šar.

There are a few other references to multiple Hermeses in Greek and Latin from the Roman Imperial period.57 Only one of these, however, brings us closer to the Arabic biographies. In fact, it sheds light on a major source of Abū Ma<šar’s legend, as will be seen. The report is found in the Byzantine Greek world chronicle of George Syncellus, who worked in Constantinople around 808–810,58 extensively citing ear-lier Christian chronicles that are now lost; his work therefore is of great importance

52. SH 23.5. On Egyptian charaktēres see Dieleman 2005: 96–101.53. Scott 1.77.54. Nag< @ammādī VI.8 (including sections 21–29).55. Asclepius 37 = CH 2.347.20–348.6.56. The appearance of two Hermeses here and in related works is discussed by Fowden 1993a: 29–31.

Fowden takes avus to mean “grandfather” rather than “ancestor,” which is a possibility. See also the Fowden’s discussion of the devotion of the Hermopolitans to Hermes, the divine founder of their city, 174–176.

57. Cicero, De natura deorum 3.56, cited by Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones 1.6, refers to different Hermeses as known to several local cults. Cf. Fowden 1993a: 24.

58. See Syncellus trans. by Adler and Tuffi n, xxix.

History of the Arabic Hermes

for the modern understanding of late antique historiography and chronography. One of the sources he cites (indirectly, through another source), mentioned in no other surviving ancient work, is a Book of Sothis ascribed to the Egyptian priest and chronicler of the Ptolemaic period, Manetho. The ascription to Manetho is appar-ently false, although George Syncellus seems to have believed it. He quotes several lines from the beginning of the Book of Sothis, introducing it as follows:

Now it remains to treat small passages from the writings of Manetho of Sebennytos concerning the dynasty of the Egyptians. In the time of Ptolemy Philadelphos, he was serving as a high priest of the temples of idols in Egypt, and, on the basis of monuments lying in the Seriadic land that were inscribed, as he says, in a sacred language and priestly characters by Thoth, the fi rst Hermes, and translated after the Flood from the sacred language into Greek (eÆ| <Ekkgm¨da fixmóm) with hieroglyphic characters, and committed to books, by the second Hermes, Agathodaimon’s son, father of Tat,59 in the shrines of the holy places of Egypt—[on the basis of this] Manetho addressed the above Philadelphos, Ptolemy II, in the Book of Sothis, writing in precisely the fol-lowing words:

“To the great king Ptolemy Philadelphos Augustus, Manetho the high priest and scribe of the holy shrines in Egypt, from Sebennytos and dwelling at Heliopolis, greetings to my lord Ptolemy. It is our obligation, greatest king, to consider all those matters about which you wanted us to inquire. So, then, as you are doing research about the future of the universe, in response to your request, I will produce for you those sacred books composed by our forefather Hermes Thrice-Greatest of which I was aware. I bid you farewell, my lord King.”

[End of quotation; Syncellus’ commentary resumes:] This is what he says about the translation of the books by the second Hermes. Now after this, he also narrates about the fi ve Egyptian classes [of kings] in thirty dynasties, called by them gods, demigods, and mortal men . . .60

The affi nity between this passage and the story given by Abū Ma<šar is readily appar-ent. Here are the fi rst two Hermeses of his tale, one before the Flood, one after the Flood, presented to us in an ancient Greek source. The details of the preservation of

59. It is important to note here the ambiguity of the Greek. The string of genitives, Õpø so’

cahoda¨loto| tØo’ so’ detsåqot <Eqlo’ may have been intended to mean “by Agathodaemon, son of the second Hermes,” which is how Adler and Tuffi n have translated it. My modifi cation to their translation makes the second Hermes the one who recovered the antediluvian knowledge because it is evident that the version of the story transmitted into Arabic must have been understood to mean that it was the second Hermes, and not Agathodaemon, who recovered the ancient knowledge.

60. Syncellus 72–73 (ed. Mosshammer 40.31–41.22); the English translation given here is that of Adler and Tuffi n, 54–55, with some modifi cations. Adler and Tuffi n’s translation gives notes regarding the textual diffi culties presented by this corrupt passage.

The Three Hermeses

knowledge through the Flood, put into writing by the fi rst Hermes and recovered by the second Hermes, cannot have been coincidentally invented twice, so we can con-clude that the Arabic account and the Greek account must be related. The next task then is to determine what this relationship is.

Martin Plessner was among the scholars to draw attention to the similarity of the story in this Greek passage to the Arabic Hermes stories. In his perspicacious article of 1954 on the Arabic Hermetica and the state of research on the subject, he con-cluded that the stories about Hermes related by Abū Ma<šar had to be of Babylonian origin because they contained the story of the Deluge. “It is self-evident,” he wrote, “that the missing link has to be found in a Greek text dealing with Aegyptiaca.” Although one might not agree that it is self-evident, he was certainly on the right track, and he cited the beginning of the Book of Sothis as reported by Syncellus as his missing link.61 As long ago noted in modern scholarship, it is clear from the opening text of the Book of Sothis that the work is from Roman Imperial times, because Ptolemy is addressed by the anachronistic title Augustus (rebarsÛ). It may well have been written by a Roman Egyptian trying to illustrate the superiority of his ancient country in competition with Berossus’ chronography of ancient Mesopotamia.62

William Adler suggests that Plessner exaggerated the importance of the Book of Sothis as the “missing link” here.63 However, the citation of the Book of Sothis is in fact the only relevant evidence of a closely parallel account of multiple Hermeses before Abū Ma<šar. It is not the proximate link, but it is nevertheless a link between us and the lost account preceding Abū Ma<šar, his source. The account from the Book of Sothis, in its specifi c details, clearly represents a tradition available somehow to Abū Ma<šar. But how did the account of the ancient Hermeses reach him? This question is very important for the Arabic legends of Hermes, but it has not been investigated before.

4.3 A Trail of Chronicles

The chronicle of Syncellus, in which the story of the antediluvian Hermes and his postdiluvian successor appears, is a Christian world chronicle, telling the history of the world from its beginnings down to the Roman period. To explain the relation-ship between Syncellus’ text and Abū Ma<šar’s, it is necessary to introduce some basic information about late antique Christian world chronicles. This requires a little excursus, after which Abū Ma<šar’s story of Hermes will begin to make more sense.

61. Plessner 1954a: 55–57.62. See Adler 1989 (chapter 2) on the contest for the chronological priority of nations among late

antique chronographers.63. Adler 1989: 62n73.

History of the Arabic Hermes

Christian world chronicles were a successful genre of Greek historiography that sought, in its formative centuries, to prove the truth and superiority of the Christian nation by showing the relative antiquity of its scriptures and the persons and events described therein. This meant establishing the early dates of the patriarchs and the prophets, especially Abraham, with whom God founded his covenant, and Moses, the supposed author of the Pentateuch. Simultaneously, it attempted to show that other nations, especially the Hellenic, were younger and derivative. In this effort, some of the most intractable debates concerned the precise dates of the most impor-tant ancient events, such as the creation of the world, the creation of Adam, Adam’s Fall from the Garden, and the Flood. Christian chroniclers were especially divided about the possibility of knowing any history of the period before the Flood beyond the very little told in the book of Genesis. The Bible itself provided the basis for their chronology of ancient times with its many indications of the number of years pass-ing at each stage, particularly the life spans of the patriarchs and reigns of kings. Sometimes a millennial scheme was imposed on the timeline, so that Jesus was born in the middle of the sixth and last millennium of the world. However, inconsisten-cies and ambiguities within the text of the Bible, and differences in the numbers between its Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic versions, made the establishment of a uni-versally accepted timeline impossible. Attempts to revise the numbers of years to a fi nally correct form never ceased, and Syncellus himself was a late participant in this effort. Later chronographers, including Syncellus, often recorded the variant opinions of their predecessors in an attempt to be comprehensive or to refute opposing views.

Another problem facing Christian chroniclers was the dilemma of whether, and how much, to rely on unorthodox sources for very ancient times. These included the Babylonian history of Berossus and the Egyptian history of Manetho, which claimed to give information about kings who, according to those chronologies, should have long antedated the Flood, as well as noncanonical Jewish and Christian texts, such as 1 Enoch, which elaborated at length on antediluvian events described only briefl y in the canonical Bible. It is not necessary to dwell much on the factors involved in these debates here, though they are interesting.64 It is important to note, however, that the periods of Babylonian and Egyptian kingship provided by Berossus and Manetho, respectively, were extremely ancient, beyond tens of thousands of years, and were regarded as incredible by both Hellenic and Christian Greek authors. Besides these remarks, suffi ce it to say that Christian world chronicles included excerpts of numerous passages drawn from ancient authorities, some biblical and some not, levied to prove their arguments about the dates and signifi cance of this or that ancient event. In this way they become storehouses of excerpts derived from texts otherwise lost to us today. One stylistic feature of these chronicles is that their authors regularly cite sources from citations in earlier chronicles without ever seeing

64. Adler 1989 provides a helpful and detailed treatment of all these issues.

The Three Hermeses

the entire work originally cited, and without mentioning the intermediary chroniclerfrom whom they took these citations. They give the appearance of knowing many ancient sources not actually at their disposal directly.

Eusebius’ world chronicle, completed in 325, was the most infl uential of all of them.65 It was arranged in two parts. The fi rst part, surviving entire today only in Armenian, was an essay discussing the validity of different ancient sources and the best method to approach chronography. Among other things, Eusebius argued against using the ancient Egyptian and Babylonian dates of Manetho and Berossus, but in the course of this argument, he cited these works at length. He began his dates not with the creation of the world but with Abraham, whom he considered as early a historical fi gure as could be reliably discussed. The second, and more infl uential, part of his chronicle was the application of the conclusions reached in the fi rst part in “chronological canons,” a long timeline arranged in columns, with a different column for each nation, and with the nations synchronized according to Eusebius’ understanding. The years of the era of Abraham formed the backbone of the time-lines of kings and nations, running from beginning to end. All of this was annotated in the margins and spaces between the columns with notes about the important events that took place and the famous historical persons who lived in a given year. Subsequent world chronicles tended to be arranged in a similar tabular form. They also took over large amounts of Eusebius’ collected information, often without attribution.

Around 400 ce, an Egyptian chronicler named Panodorus was writing in Alexandria, using and criticizing Eusebius’ chronicle in different ways. His own work is lost, and what is known about it is based solely on the citations that Syncellus made of it. The story of the two Hermeses came to Syncellus from this Panodorus. He makes this clear in his discussion following the passage about the two Hermeses translated above. In fact, he cites it mainly in order to refute Panodorus’ novel use of this Book of Sothis as a source of ancient dates.66 In other words, the story of the two Hermeses from the Book of Sothis was cited by Panodorus, who was interested in the ancient Egyptian dates it provided. Syncellus knew it not from the Book of Sothisdirectly, but from his source, Panodorus (or rather from an intermediary that cited Panodorus in turn).67 The only reason the passage survives is that Syncellus wanted to attack it.

Because Panodorus, and not Syncellus, was the source of the story of two Hermeses, naturally the next step is to see whether Abū Ma<šar had any of Panodorus’

65. There are several excellent introductions to the work in English alone: Mosshammer 1979, Adler 1992, Croke 1982, Witakowski 1999–2000 (this last one is particularly relevant to the Eastern reception of the Eusebian tradition).

66. Panodorus’ treatment of Egyptian and Babylonian antediluvian chronology is explained by Adler 1989: 75–80.

67. Adler 1989: 132–158 treats the kinds of sources at Syncellus’ disposal, including whether or not he saw his sources directly.

History of the Arabic Hermes

writings at his disposal. As mentioned, however, the chronicle of Panodorus is lost, and Syncellus is the only witness to its existence. But Panodorus had a contempo-rary named Annianus, another Alexandrian monk who wrote another chronicle now lost, apparently only a few years later and relying on Panodorus’ work. Syncellus also includes some discussion of Annianus’ chronicle along with that of Panodorus. Syncellus is one of the most important sources of information also about Annianus. He regards Annianus’ chronicle as more sound in respect to its overall tally of years from creation, but he makes it clear that the chronicles of Panodorus and Annianus shared a great deal of material, some of it blameworthy. In particular, they had com-mon recourse to sources on antediluvian history that Syncellus (as Eusebius before them) criticized as false: both accepted the existence of an antediluvian Babylonian kingdom (according to the work of Berossus as cited by the earlier, non-Christian historian of the fi rst century bce, Alexander Polyhistor), and they also both accepted the views of Manetho, along with those of Abydenus and Apollodorus, three histo-rians “who,” Syncellus says, “told the same kinds of stories (as that of Berossus’ ante-diluvian history) about a dynasty of Egyptian kings before the Flood.”68 In short, this Annianus relied on the same sources as his fellow Alexandrian for antediluvian Egyptian dates, including the Book of Sothis attributed to Manetho.69 Whether Annianus did so directly from the Book of Sothis or indirectly, taking his informa-tion from Panodorus, is irrelevant. There is every reason to assume that Annianus mentioned the ultimate origin of his ancient Egyptian dates, the two Hermeses, in his chronicle, even if they appeared only as annotations on his chronological tables, on the column of Egypt, before and after the Flood. In fact, it is possible that Syncellus knew the theories of Panodorus, cited above, only through the intermedi-ary of Annianus.

The question then is whether Abū Ma<šar had this information from Annianus at his disposal. The short answer is yes. Abū Ma<šar had the story of the antediluvian Hermes and his postdiluvian successor through the transmission of Annianus, although indirectly.70 As I will show below, Abū Ma<šar actually cites a date from Annianus, by name, in one of his works, and he proves to have been well acquainted with the Christian chronographic tradition in Arabic translation. Before discussing Abū Ma<šar’s use of ancient chronographic sources, however, some words about the Eastern reception of Annianus are necessary.

68. Syncellus 35. Trans. adapted from Adler and Tuffi n, 46. See also Gelzer 1885–1888: 2.191. Syncellus 63.19 Panodorus was fi rst: Sync 74.8ff. Annianus fi nished in 412. Panodorus fl ourished ca 395–408.

69. Scholars (e.g., Verbrugghe and Wickersham 1996: 101–102) doubt that Manetho was really the author of this book, but the accuracy of the attribution is beside the point here.

70. In an earlier publication (van Bladel 2003) with close constraints of space, I presented a much more concise version of the following discussion, from which a reader might infer that Abū Ma<šar had direct access to a complete text of Annianus. As will be evident here, I do not think it likely that he actually had the full text of Annianus before him.

The Three Hermeses

4.4 Annianus in Syriac and Arabic

The reception of Annianus’ chronicle was more favorable than that of Panodorus, but it also was subject to the demands of its genre.71 Once another chronicler mined it for information, and incorporated whatever he wanted out of it into his own chronicle, the original could be discarded and the more up-to-date one preserved. In other cases, authors of chronicles regarded the discussion of the earlier dates as a fi nished subject, referring the reader to those works; their concern was to update the older chronicles with more recent events. The result of this method of working is that there are quite a few traces of Annianus’ chronicle surviving in numerous later works, but it is diffi cult to tell how much of Annianus’ original writing was actually available to any given later author. Sometimes these traces are nothing more than the citation of a length of time between two events as given by Annianus: for exam-ple, the number of years he believed to have elapsed between the Flood and the beginning of the Seleucid era. In other cases, but more rarely, whole paragraphs are cited on Annianus’ authority. When a chronicler names Annianus as one of his authorities, it is likely that a great deal of other information related by that chroni-cler is owed ultimately to Annianus without citation. Annianus himself had evi-dently used his sources, including Eusebius, Alexander Polyhistor, and others, in a similar fashion. Such is the character of the late antique chronographic tradition.

One innovative feature of Annianus’ chronicle was that in it he formulated a cycle of 532 years, according to which the dates of the year and the days of the week on which Easter falls are repeated.72 These Paschal tables were admired and became standard.73 Annianus used the cycle to prove not only that the birth of Jesus was exactly in the middle of the sixth millennium of Creation, but also that the creation of the world and the resurrection of Jesus occurred on the same date of the calendar year, the fi rst day of the fi rst month of the religious calendar of the Jews (1 Nisan), being also the twenty-fi fth of March in both instances.74 Another important charac-teristic of Annianus’ chronicle that appears to have made it an important supple-ment to Eusebius’ chronicle in the eyes of later historians was its willingness to relate a history of antediluvian times. Eusebius had declined to include the antediluvian period because he considered such early history unreliable. But when citations from Annianus turn up in Syriac and Arabic works, most of them are concerned with the primordial times before and after the Flood, which Eusebius left out. Annianus’ treatment of antediluvian times is just what Syncellus says his chronicle had in com-mon with that of Panodorus. All of the extant citations from Annianus concern the earliest history of the world.

71. It is not clear whether Panodorus’ chronicle really circulated at all; it may have been only Annianus who related its contents. Witakowski 1999–2000: 434–435 discusses the Eastern reception of Annianus in the context of Eusebian chronographic tradition.

72. Syncellus 35 and 382.73. Neugebauer 1989: 27–30 explains briefl y the mathematics behind this cycle and its infl uence.74. Syncellus, 1.

History of the Arabic Hermes

The resulting picture may appear complicated, but fortunately the Syriac chroniclers, who based their work directly on the Christian Greek antecedents, were often scrupulous in listing the sources that they used, even if they used them only as cited by other, unnamed authors. One of the most scrupulous was the eleventh-century chronicler Elias of Nisibis, a cleric of the Church of the East, who composed a bilingual Syriac and Arabic chronicle that survives in a single lacunose manuscript. Though whole sections are missing where pages have fallen out, the remaining text has much to say about its sources. In the Syriac passage where he discusses his predecessors’ treatments of Easter datings, he gives a good idea of how Annianus came to be used in Syriac tradition.75 The beginning of the passage, presumably discussing Annianus himself and his Easter tables, is lost in the manuscript. What does survive is the following. In the days of Justinian (r. 527–565), a chronicler named Andronicus used Annianus for his Paschal tables, but disagreed with the exact dates given by Annianus and Eusebius for the biblical patriarchs.76 Then, in 691–692, Jacob of Edessa (d. 708), a renowned Syrian scholar who read Greek, wrote his own chronicle in Syriac, agreeing with both Annianus and Andronicus on the Paschal tables, and also criticizing Eusebius.77 Moreover, Elias says that in the days of the Persian Emperor ¢usrō II (r. 590–628), a chroni-cler named Šem<ōn Barqāyā made a translation—apparently of Andronicus’ chronicle—that the Easterners (“Nestorians”) were still using in the time of Elias, though he says it was mistakenly thought to be by Eusebius.78 Almost all of these intermediary chronicles, including Andronicus’, are lost, but they clearly used Annianus and Eusebius a great deal, and must have cited them extensively. Jacob of Edessa’s chronicle survives in what appear to be excerpts or reworked portions, including some of his chronographic discussions and his table of dates from Constantine onward.79 Again, these chroniclers cited their earlier sources through an unknown number of removed stages. Although Elias mentions them in a con-text where he discusses the cycles of Easter dates, it is clear that all of these authors

75. Elias text pt. 2, 99.12–26, Latin trans. pt. 2, 111.76. Witakowski 1999–2000: 435–436 suggests that this Andronicus wrote in Syriac, not Greek,

because no references to this Andronicus survive in Greek. However, Elias makes it appear that Šem<ōnBarqāyā translated the text into Syriac, which implies that Andronicus did write it in Greek. He says that Šem<ōn “made a translation of (less likely: a commentary on) this chronicle which the Easterners presently use” <bad Šem<ôn Barqāyâ pûššāqâ da-krônîqôn hādê d-bāh metHaššbîn MadnHāyê b-hānâzabnâ. “This chronicle” is apparently the chronicle just mentioned, that of Andronicus.

77. The surviving portions of Jacob’s chronicle are edited and translated (Jacob of Edessa 1903). On Jacob of Edessa’s chronicle in general see Witakowski 1999–2000: 429–431 and 2008. Jacob cites “Annianus, the monk of Alexandria” (Aniyânôs dayrāyâ haw d-Aleksandriyâ) and Andronicus among other chronographic authorities in one of his letters to John the Stylite (Nau 1900: 584.35–37, trans. 590).

78. Elias text pt. 2, 99.18–22, Latin trans. pt. 2, 111.79. Palmer 1993: 36–42 presents an English translation of one of the fragments of Jacob’s work.

The Three Hermeses

wrote chronicles continuing the earlier ones at their disposal and correcting the earlier ones where they deemed necessary.

Jacob of Edessa’s and Šem<ōn Barqāyā’s chronicles were evidently important sources for Elias of Nisibis, from which he probably learned most of the foregoing information. Elias is able to cite historical dates and period lengths from the works of all of his main predecessors, including Eusebius, Annianus, Andronicus, and Jacob of Edessa, indicating that his proximate sources must have related the views of his predecessors on a number of points as well as their own views.

Another important Syriac chronicler, whose work must be pieced together from the extensive citations made from it by later chroniclers, was Dionysius of Tell Mahrē (d. 845).80 The introduction to his chronicle, listing its sources, was cited by two later chroniclers, Michael the Elder (d. 1199) and the anonymous author of the Chronicle to 1234.81 Among these sources are Andronicus, Annianus, Jacob of Edessa, and quite a few others. From Dionysius, later chroniclers had access to information from many earlier works. It is probably from Dionysius that both Michael the Elder and Bar <Ebrāyā (Abū l-Farag Ġrīġūriyūs Ibn al-<Ibrī) (d. 1286) cite Annianus, Andronicus, and the other commonly cited earlier chronographers, just as Elias did. Often they relate the chronologies of Annianus and Andronicus side by side as two possible views on things, both of which needed to be taken into account. They do this usually without crediting their immediate source at every point. The real source for any report may have been obscured by an intervening chronicler in the case of any given report.

Unfortunately, neither Elias nor Michael have anything to say about Hermes that might tell us about the coverage of the antediluvian sage in Annianus. The text of the former is lost where one would expect any mention of Hermes, if it had occurred there. Michael’s huge chronicle has plenty of room for such a notice but he does not give it, although he does mention that Enoch introduced writing into the world.82

Ibn al-<Ibrī (Bar <Ebrāyā), the learned Syrian Orthodox maphrian who used both Syriac and Arabic sources, presents a different case requiring special attention. This thirteenth-century scholar wrote two chronicles, one in Syriac and one in Arabic, which contain much of the same information but signifi cant differences as well. They include somewhat different treatments of Hermes in Syriac and in Arabic. The Hermes of Ibn al-<Ibrī’s chronicle is a modifi ed version of that of Abū Ma<šar, sup-plemented with the account of al-Mubaššir ibn Fātik (studied in section 5.2 in this volume).83 Here there are three different individuals named Hermes. Whatever information Ibn al-<Ibrī had at his disposal from earlier chronicles, he preferred that

80. Palmer 1993: 85–221 reconstructs a good deal of Dionysius’ chronicle.81. Palmer 1993: 91–92.82. Michael the Elder 1.5: text 4, trans. 9.83. Ibn al-<Ibrī, Kitāb Ta>rīx ad-duwal, 11.6–13.6.

History of the Arabic Hermes

of Abū Ma<šar instead, which was by then the standard in Arabic literature. In his Syriac chronicle, however, written for a Christian audience, Ibn al-<Ibrī mentions only one Hermes. Hermes here is identifi ed with the patriarch Enoch, and the report comes in connection with the genealogy of Enoch in the midst of the patriarchs. In both the Syriac and the Arabic text, Hermes-Enoch is said to be the teacher of Asclepius. Ibn al-<Ibrī did not translate the Arabic of Abū Ma<šar into Syriac, although he paraphrased some parts of it.84

Information deriving from this Syriac Christian chronographic tradition is easy to fi nd in Arabic, and Muslims scholars derived it from learned Christians. Dates and king lists that had passed through Eusebius’ chronicle, or his later critics, are com-mon in Arabic world histories.85 The historian and traveler al-Mas<ūdī (d. 956)reported that he himself saw a copy of Annianus’ chronicle.86 He mentions it in a list of the Christian chronicles that he has seen as “the book of Annianus, the Alexandrian monk, in which he ordered the kings of Rome and those of other nations, their lives and histories, from Adam to Constantine son of Helen.” Al-Bīrūnī (d. after 1050) had chronicles at his disposal from which he could cite some of the same king-lists as given by Eusebius. For this information he names his authorities as “a certain book” (ba<d al-kutub),87 “the people of the west” (ahl al-maġrib),88 and “a certain historian” (ba<d ahl al-axbār).89 But in his al-Qānūn al-mas<ūdī, he cites both Annianus and Andronicus by name as authorities on ancient dates, indicating that his source was part of this Christian chronographic tradition.90

It should not come as a surprise, therefore, to fi nd that Abū Ma<šar himself cites Annianus by name in one of his surviving works on historical astrology, Kitābal-Qirānāt (Book of Conjunctions), also known as Kitāb al-Milal wa-d-duwal(Religious Nations and Dynasties). There has been some confusion about the iden-tity of the author of this work since the Middle Ages. According to an-Nadīm, AbūMa<šar wrote this book for the little-known astrologer Ibn al-Bāzyār.91 One recen-sion of manuscripts attributes the work to Ibn al-Bāzyār himself,92 and al-Bīrūnī(d. ca 1050) followed the latter attribution. Al-Bīrūnī also stated specifi cally that the Book of Conjunctions of Ibn al-Bāzyār cited Annianus, and he related this citation in

84. For the accounts of Hermes-Enoch, see Bar <Ebrāyā, Syriac chronicle trans. Budge 5, Bodleian MS Hunt. 52 facsimile 2v; Ibn al-<Ibrī, Ta>rīx 11.6–12.12.

85. For examples, see Stern 1972.86. al-Mas<ūdī, Tanbīh, 154.16–155.2. The correct reading of the name there was recognized by

E. Honigmann 1952, who also supplied a very useful bibliography on Annianus. The work is mentioned in a passage in which al-Mas<ūdī is listing books of the histories of the Christians that he has seen. Among them are the histories of @abīb al-Manbigī and Sa<īd ibn al-Bitrīq.

87. al-Bīrūnī, ĀTār 84.14.88. al-Bīrūnī, ĀTār 87.1.89. al-Bīrūnī, ĀTār 87.6.90. al-Bīrūnī, al-Qānūn al-mas<ūdī, I.171.1. The name is given by the editors as >bn>nws. As I will

show below, al-Bīrūnī’s source here may have been Abū Ma<šar’s Thousands.91. Fihrist 336.2 (ed. Flügel 277.12).92. Pingree, “Abū Ma<shar,” in DSB 1.36; cf. GAS 7.146, 154.

The Three Hermeses

his own book.93 Al-Mas<ūdī, on the other hand, wrote of a certain Ibn al-Māzyār, a student of Abū Ma<šar, who compiled a summary of his teacher’s Thousands. This is probably an error for Ibn al-Bāzyār.94 It is easy to see how confusion over authorship arose given the relationship between the two astrologers, student and teacher. However, the Western tradition of the manuscripts, and modern scholarship, credits Abū Ma<šar, and not his student, with the Conjunctions.95

To our good fortune, this Book of Conjunctions has recently been edited in both the original Arabic and the Latin version.96 It shows that al-Bīrūnī was exactly right in his citation of Annianus through it (except for the omission of two words, lost by the manuscript tradition).97 However, the editors were unable to identify the correct reading of the name Annianus.98 Pingree noted the trouble with this name already in 1963, when he drew attention to the “name, corruptly preserved in Arabic” cited in the Book of Conjunctions.99 Following the suggestion of A. J. Sachs, Pingree sug-gested that the obscure name should be read “Abydenus,”100 a known early Greek chronographer, although such an interpretation led to other diffi culties. The name should, however, be read as Annianus, as Sachau’s translation of the Chronology of al-Bīrūnī rendered it long ago.101

More problematic is that Pingree misunderstood the text to say that Annianus had proposed a date for the Flood of -3101 (i.e., 3102 bce).102 The text does not actu-ally say that Annianus proposed a date for the Flood of -3101 at all; it says rather that

��

93. Al-Bīrūnī, ĀTār 21.19, says that Ibn Bāzyār reported this statement from “Annianus, one of the historians,” >nynws aHad asHāb al-axbār in his K. al-Qirānāt (Book of Conjunctions). Sachau read >Tnyws in the 1878 Arabic edition of the ĀTār, but rendered the reading “Anianus” according to the correct pointing (with a single “n,” a common alternative spelling) in the index to the Arabic edition and in his English translation (25.27) of 1879. The diffi culty in reading this name in Arabic script becomes especially important in the discussion immediately below. Rowson 1988: 196–197 also noticed and discussed the reading of this name.

94. Murūg (Pellat §1419 = 2.408.11) gives the voweled reading “Ibn al-Māziyyār.” Pingree 1968:23n4 and DSB vol. 1, 36 questioned the reading of Ibn al-Māzyār, suggesting Ibn al-Bāzyār. As far as I can determine, only one Māzyār (or Māziyār) is attested in Arabic literature: the rebel leader Māzyāribn Qārin, who seized power from the Bāwandids of Tabaristān, 825–839 ce (Bosworth 1996: 164–165). The name at least is contemporary to Abū Ma<šar, and a son of this man could (in theory) have been his student. The little that is known about Ibn al-Bāzyār, student of the better-known mathematician @abaš (fl . mid-ninth cent.), is summarized in GAS 7.154.

95. Burnett and Yamamoto 2000: 1.xxiii–xxv. 96. Burnett and Yamamoto 2000. 97. The words omitted by al-Bīrūnī are wa-šahr. As shown below, this reading is the correct one,

and al-Bīrūnī’s ĀTār should be emended at 21.21 with this addition after sana. 98. Their text reads >bTnws (22.209), which is correct except for the pointing. The facing

translation includes a note saying, “It is diffi cult to identify this authority, whose name appears in several different forms in the Arabic and Latin manuscripts” (23n26).

99. Pingree 1963a: 243.100. Idem: 243n114.101. The Arabic letters >bTnws and >nynws, deprived of their diacritical dots, are identical in Arabic

script. (Compare ����� and �����.) The reading of al-Mas<ūdī, al-Bīrūnī, and Ibn al-<Ibrī is slightly different: >ny>nws ������� (see Honigmann 1952).

102. He says that “this information is from a translation by E. S. Kennedy.”

��

History of the Arabic Hermes

“Annianus and others have stated” (wa-qad Dakara Anniyanūs wa-ġayruhū)103 that the period between the creation of Adam and the Flood was two thousand, two hundred and twenty six years, one month, twenty-three days, and four hours. AbūMa<šar’s date of -3101 for the Flood comes from the Indian tradition of the Sindhind,not from Annianus.104 In fact, the context of the citation makes it clear that Annianus has no readily apparent bearing on Abū Ma<šar’s discussion whatever, because in this passage he was concerned not with the period between the creation of Adam to the Flood, but that between the Flood and the advent of Islam. What is important here is that Abū Ma<šar cites Annianus by name in a parenthetical remark. It shows without any doubt that he had access, in some form, to Christian chronographic traditions, and it is only the fi rst of several indications to be discussed.

Decisive proof that Annianus is the correct reading of the name in the Conjunctionsis provided by Ibn al-<Ibrī in his already mentioned Arabic chronicle, Kitāb Ta>rīxad-duwal. Ibn al-<Ibrī cited Annianus several times by name as an authority on spe-cifi c dates. Among these citations he says, “Annianus the Alexandrian Monk said that the period between the beginning of the creation of Adam and the Friday night on which was the Flood was two thousand, two hundred and twenty six years, one month, twenty-three days, and four hours.”105 First, the reading of the name Annianus is just as al-Mas<ūdī reported it, with the epithet “the Alexandrian monk,” confi rming the identity. Second, Abū Ma<šar’s Book of Conjunctions gives exactly the same period, down to the hour, between Adam’s creation and the Flood. This estab-lishes the identity of the name in the Conjunctions beyond any doubt.106

It is interesting to note that the eastern Iranian philosopher al-<Amirī (wr. 985–986, d. 992) cites the same information in a discussion of eras. He refers to the Era of the Deluge used by Abū Ma<šar in his zīg, and adds, “It is reported by one of the historians that between the beginning of the creation of Adam and the Thursday night on which the Flood began were 2226 years, 1 month, 2[3] days, and 4 hours—but this man wrote his compositions arbitrarily, without proving what he talked about.”107 It is not clear whether “this man” refers to the historian, clearly Annianus, or to Abū Ma<šar, from whose work this information came to al-<Amirī.

103. Burnett and Yamamoto 2000: 1.22.209.104. Pingree himself makes this clear in his discussion of the passage (1963a: 243).105. Ibn al-<Ibrī 9.25–10.2. See Annianus in the index of the edition for the citations.106. The only mystery remaining is that Syncellus (33) and Michael the Elder (1.4, trans. 8) report

that that Annianus’ period between Adam and the Flood is 2,242 years. The antediluvian tally of 2,242years was also given by Eusebius (Adler 1989: 47 and 119–120). There is therefore a difference between the two periods reported for Annianus—that given by Abū Ma<šar and Ibn al-<Ibrī on the one hand and by Syncellus and Michael on the other—of sixteen years, less one month, twenty-three days, and four hours. What is the source of this difference? How could Annianus have followed both tallies? The discrepancy led Rowson 1988: 196 to doubt the identity of the two fi gures (Annianus and “Athenaeus”). The difference must come from chronographic considerations that remain, for now, lost or undiscovered.

107. Translation adapted slightly from Rowson 1988: 67 (Kitāb al-Amad <alā l-abad 2.16).

The Three Hermeses

The Persian history written by al-Guzgānī in India, Tabaqāt-i Nās.irī (wr. 1259–1260),108 contains more evidence for Abū Ma<šar’s detailed familiarity with material from the chronicle of Annianus.109 William Adler discovered that this Persian work incorporated into its ancient history an infl uential account derived from Annianus about the origin of kingship before the Flood, “Annianus’ euhemerizing interpreta-tion of Berossus, 1 Enoch, and Genesis 6.” Adler was not in a position to explain how the account reached a Persian writer in northern India in the thirteenth century.110

Al-Guzgānī does indeed tell the story of the angelic Watchers, their fall, their mating with human women, and their troublesome giant offspring, a story derived ulti-mately from the fi rst part of 1 Enoch, the Book of the Watchers.111 The fi rst king elected by the people to resist the giants appears there as Aylūrūs. This is Aloros, the fi rst king from Berossus’ Greek version of the Sumerian king list, which was incor-porated into the chronicle of Annianus and many later chronicles.112 But al-Guzgānīexplicitly states that this story in his account derives from Abū Ma<šar, beginning the account with the words, “and in the transmitted account of the Qānūn-i mas<ūdī,that Abū Ma<šar the Astrologer made . . . ”113 Sven Hartman interpreted this phrase to mean that al-Guzgānī strangely cited Abū Ma<šar as the author of the Qānūn-imas<ūdī; this last work is in fact the maximum opus rather of al-Bīrūnī, who lived two centuries after Abū Ma<šar.114 Yet the Persian is ambiguous here (as refl ected in the English translation above), and the intended meaning is probably rather that it was the transmitted account (Arabic riwāya, Persian rivāyat), provided by al-Bīrūnī,that was Abū Ma<šar’s. In other words, what Abū Ma<šar made was not, of course, al-Bīrūnī’s book, but the transmitted account, or tradition, contained therein. Again, Adler showed that this tradition defi nitely derived from Annianus.

The trail leads then to the source that al-Guzgānī cited, al-Bīrūnī’s al-Qānūnal-mas<ūdī. Like all zīges (astronomical handbooks), this work contains a section on calendars and the conversion of dates, one of the specialties of astronomers.115

Al-Bīrūnī had already written his major work on chronology (al-ATār al-bāqiya)

108. The dates of composition given here are from A. S. Bazmee Ansari, “al-Djuzdjānī,” EI2,2.609a–b.

109. al-Guzgānī 132–133 (near the beginning of the fi fth tabaqa). The relevant passages of this text are given in abbreviated form by Hartman 1953: XXVII–XXX (Persian text) and 151–155 (French translation with notes).

110. Adler 1989: 127–128.111. “The Watchers,” in Greek écqñcoqoi, is rendered in Arabic quite accurately as ������ al-Yaqzā,

“the Vigilant,” but the name is corrupted in the manuscript tradition of the Tabaqāt-i Nāsirī to ������an-Nabatī, “the Nabataean” (in Arabic, Nabatī means “<Irāqī Aramaean” and does not refer to the ancient kingdom of Petra). On this misreading cf. Hartman 1953: 153n1.

112. al-Guzgānī 132.20.113. idem, 131.25–132–1: va ba rivāyat-i Qānūn-i mas<ūdī ki Abū Ma<šar-i Munaggim karda ast. . . . 114. Hartman 1953: 153n2. Hartman translated the passage differently as “Et d’aprés le récit de

Qānūn-i Mas<ūdī, que l’astronome Abū Ma’šar a écrit . . . ” (idem: 153, emphasis added).115. King and Samsó 2001: 19–20.

History of the Arabic Hermes

when he composed his zig, the Qānūn. Predictably, it contains well-informed chron-ological tables. However, some of the information here is not found in his ATār, at least as it is known today. We fi nd in the Qānūn an abbreviated account of the Watchers and their fall at the head of its chronological charts, themselves distant descendants of Eusebius’ canons. This is followed directly by a remarkable table of all the ancient Chaldaean kings, as listed originally by Berossus, beginning with Aylūrūs/Aloros.116 But problems remain. The story told at length and in detail by al-Guzgānī appears in al-Bīrūnī’s Qānūn only in the form of a schematic, chrono-logical canon. Al-Bīrūnī gives neither the full story of the Watchers related by al-Guzgānī, nor does he cite Abū Ma<šar as an authority for this section of the work. But al-Bīrūnī does cite Annianus and Andronicus as authorities on ancient dates in the commentary following his chronological charts!117

The simplest solution to this puzzle might be to assume that al-Guzgānī had at his disposal a fuller version of al-Bīrūnī’s al-Qānūn al-mas<ūdī than that presented in the modern edition. Perhaps a longer commentary or narrative, now lost, once accompanied al-Bīrūnī’s chronological charts. Since it has already been shown that al-Bīrūnī cited Annianus through Abū Ma<šar’s Book of Conjunctions, one may assume that something similar happened here, where al-Bīrūnī used another work of Abū Ma<šar’s. Whatever the case, al-Guzgānī clearly makes Abū Ma<šar respon-sible for the story proved by Adler to derive from Annianus. It would be hard to explain otherwise the appearance of Abū Ma<šar’s name in his work at this point.118

All this is a clear indication that Abū Ma<šar took into his chronology more than a few details about ancient history derived from Annianus. Abū Ma<šar was the source, for both al-Bīrūnī and, indirectly, for al-Guzgānī, of the story of the angelic Watchers, their fall, and the origin of kingship with Berossus’ fi rst Babylonian, ante-diluvian king, Aloros. In other words, Abū Ma<šar not only had dates cited from Annianus, but he also had some of the narrative commentary derived from Annianus’ chronological canon, specifi cally for antediluvian times. I think that knowledge of two Hermeses, one before the Flood and one after—Annianus’ authorities for dates on antediluvian Egypt—also reached Abū Ma<šar indirectly from Annianus in just the same way. This explains his knowledge of the two Hermeses of the Book of Sothis.

For those who are skeptical of this conclusion on the grounds that one cannot in any case be certain about a lost work known from scattered citations, there is still a general point to consider. Because both of the earliest reports on the two Hermeses

116. al-Bīrūnī, al-Qānūn al-mas<ūdī, I.149. Aloros ������ is mispointed in the edition as ��������Aylūzūs.

117. Annianus appears in the edition as ������ Abnānūs (idem, I.171.1).118. It may even be suggested that the text of al-Guzgānī requires emendation to the following

effect: “and in the transmitted account of the Qānūn-i mas<ūdī and the transmitted account which AbūMa<šar the Astrologer made . . .”

The Three Hermeses

are found in works of authors concerned with chronology, Abū Ma<šar in Arabic and Pseudo-Manetho as related by Syncellus in Greek, it becomes extremely likely that the story of two Hermeses was also conveyed by a work on chronology. There are no other known sources for the coincidence between the two stories of Hermes. Moreover, the surviving fragments of Abū Ma<šar’s Book of the Thousands amply show that Abū Ma<šar was well informed about Christian world chronography, and that he treated the subject in detail in that very work.

4.5 Abū Ma<šar as a Chronographer

Pingree’s important study of the Thousands of Abū Ma<šar does not recognize that this work was indebted to Christian chronographic tradition,119 but focuses on two tasks: a study of the astronomical parameters and astrological doctrines that AbūMa<šar employed, and the attempt to prove that Abū Ma<šar had deliberately con-cocted a false history of science that linked his astrological practice to the antedilu-vian Hermes. His analysis is based correspondingly on two main sources of information. One is several surviving unpublished mathematical abridgments of the Thousands, which Pingree consulted in manuscript. These were the sources for his study of Abū Ma<šar’s astronomical parameters.120 The other is a number of extant fragments of the Book of the Thousands showing that Abū Ma<šar discussed a variety of chronological problems and ancient eras at fuller length.121 Apparently none of the chronological discussions is present in any of the aforementioned abridgments in the manuscripts, because Pingree did not mention any.122

There is no intention here of discussing the mathematical or astrological aspects of Abū Ma<šar’s Thousands. What is of concern is rather Abū Ma<šar as a historian, or rather chronicler, because it is in his historical discussion that the story of Hermes was related. The second of these two types of witnesses, the fragments of the histori-cal part of the Book of the Thousands, provided the grounds for Pingree’s allegation that Abū Ma<šar had concocted a fake history of science. In this section, the reex-amination of these fragments leads to a different conclusion.

Most of the citations of the Thousands made by other Arabic historians make it readily apparent that Abū Ma<šar’s lost work presented a fairly detailed discussion of ancient chronology. Not only did he have at his disposal at least one Christian world chronicle in Arabic translation, but he also read somewhere an explicit discussion of

119. In fact, Pingree disregarded Plessner’s study, discussed above, which pointed to the chrono-graphic tradition as Abū Ma<šar’s source. Apparently Pingree thought that Plessner did not understand the sources at Abū Ma<šar’s disposal: “[Plessner] does not deal with the more contemporary theories of the transmission of science that Abū Ma<shar actually had at hand” (Pingree 1968: 2–3n4).

120. Pingree 1968: 21–69. 121. Pingree 1968: 1–21. 122. Such chronological information is entirely omitted at least in the Muntaxab of the Kitāb

al-Ulūf by as-Sigžī, which I examined in British Library Arabic manuscript Or. 1346 80b–91a.

History of the Arabic Hermes

the problems at stake in Christian world chronography. One of the most important witnesses to this is the Iranian scholar @amza al-Isfahānī, who lived about a hun-dred years after Abū Ma<šar. @amza includes several passages of Abū Ma<šar in his own excellent chronographic work (wr. 961) and specifi cally states in one of these that he is excerpting from the Book of the Thousands. The other passages, although not citing the Thousands by name, nevertheless clearly come from the same work. Hamza uses one long passage as an introduction to the chronography of ancient Iran:

Abū Ma<šar the astrologer said: “Most chronicles (tawārīx) are confused and corrupt. The reason that the corruption takes place is that they present the years of one of the nations from times gone by (min al-azmina) and deal with long periods. When they copy it from book to book, or from language to language, errors occur by addition to it or subtraction from it. This is like what happened to the people of the Jewish community (milla) in the years that are between Adam and Noah and between other prophets and nations that they tell about in chronography (at-ta>rīx), for they are in disagreement about them. Many of the people of various regions of the earth disagree with them about this [antediluvian period] also. Likewise, much confusion and corruption is evident in the years of the kings of Persia and their chronogra-phy, as well as in the continuity of the days of their rule from the beginning of time until their rule disappeared. At the same time, they claim that the earth remained for many years, in successive periods, without having a king from among them or from anyone else.”123

In the rest of the citation, Abū Ma<šar goes on to discuss the periods during which the ancient Iranians had no king for an unknown length of time. “Because of this,” he says, “they hold the years of the chronicles of their ancient kings differently” between the different periods. “They differ also on the lifespans of their kings.” Hamza quotes further:

Abū Ma<šar said: “Similarly, the years of the Greeks contain discrepancies like those in the years of the Persians. That is because their years and the ancient chronicles (tawārīx) of those years were translated from Hebrew, and the Hebrews differ on it because that which the Samaritans hold differs with what the generality of Jews hold, and the translation into Greek also contains discrepancies because the translation of the Seventy differs with the transla-tion of others.”

He said: “The discrepancy in the number of years from the beginning of procreation to the year of the Higra remains an issue (qā>im). For the Jews follow the account of the Torah to 4042 years and three months. The

123. This and the following excerpts from @amza al-Isfahānī 1921/2: 10–12 (fasl 1, bāb 1).

The Three Hermeses

Christians follow the account of the Torah, too, to 5909 years and three months. The Persians follow the account of the book that Zoroaster (Zaradušt) brought, called Avesta (Abistā), it being the book of their religion, that from the age of GayōmarT, father of mankind, to the year of King Yazdigird are 4182 years, ten months, and nineteen days.”

The long citation from Abū Ma<šar ends with his statement that the astrologers use a quantity of years far surpassing those of the chronographers. Here he is referring to the kalpa system of the Indians, consisting of 4,320,000,000 years. This and other very long periods used in calculating planetary longitudes were current in Arabic astrology in his time. No doubt Abū Ma<šar mentioned them to prepare the way for his own proposal of a world-year of 360,000 years, which is described by al-Bīrūnī.It is to these 360 millennia, and the millennial system of his historical astrology, that the name of his book, The Thousands, refers.

The passages above shed light on several important aspects of Abū Ma<šar’s work. First, they show that in his conception, the work of historical astrology was closely related to that of chronography. The rationale might have been that if historical astrol-ogy was to interpret history in terms of conjunctions of planets over many centuries, the practitioner required accurate tables of ancient dates and important events that could fi t into the astrological scheme to make it meaningful. Abū Ma<šar was also promoting his system in another way. His date of the Flood was in the very middle of his world-year of 360,000 years. As he says, dates before the Flood were uncertain, and this might have helped to justify using the Flood as the central event of history, the most important certainly known event in the past, and the date of the era from which he calculated dates. He knew his Flood-date from the Indian tradition of the Sindhind.Or perhaps it was the reverse, that his experience with chronography, and the uncer-tainty of antediluvian events, induced him to make the Flood-date his point of refer-ence. One also wonders whether he felt that astrological dating was superior to tradition. It may be for this reason that he emphasizes from the outset that ancient dates of the chronicles are poorly known and corrupt, the implication being then that astrologers know better and more exactly than the transmitters of traditions.

Another important aspect of the passage is that Abū Ma<šar, himself of eastern Iranian origin, was particularly interested in establishing the relative chronology of ancient Iran. In fact, Abū Ma<šar is an early witness to the attempt by Iranian schol-ars to reconcile the chronography of ancient Iran with Christian world chronicles.124

I have left out the details of the passage wherein Abū Ma<šar discussed the periods of Iranian history of unknown length. Most striking is the explicit comparison of the periods of ancient Iran with those undetermined periods of the Jews, “between

124. The Sixteenth Book of the Right Ginza of the Mandaeans, a seventh-century composition, is strikingly similar in several respects, having a 480,000 year world-period and revealing an attempt to identify biblical fi gures with ancient Iranian kings.

History of the Arabic Hermes

Adam and Noah,” that is, the antediluvian period. In other words, Abū Ma<šar was fully aware that the dates of events before the Flood, such as the one he cited from “Annianus and others” in his Book of Conjunctions, were controversial in Christian world chronicles. Moreover, he is using Christian chronography as a model for understanding the chronography of ancient Iran. That is the very reason why Hamzapreserves the passage, for @amza, too, was dealing with the same subject. Indeed, in the following sections of his work, @amza goes to great lengths to compare numer-ous witnesses in an attempt to determine the years of ancient Iran, but not before including Abū Ma<šar’s warning at the outset.

@amza also cites Abū Ma<šar’s Thousands as one of several sources of informa-tion at his disposal on the chronology of ancient Rome: “Abū Ma<šar states in his Book of the Thousands the years of two of the Roman kings: Diocletian and Augustus, and that between Alexander and Augustus there were 280 years, and between him and Diocletian 596 years.”125 @amza cites this in the midst of much fuller reports on the dates and events of ancient Greece and Rome from other, more detailed sources. The excerpt shows merely that Abū Ma<šar, like every astronomer, studied the con-versions of calendars, including the eras of Augustus and Diocletian.126 But a few sections later, another citation shows that Abū Ma<šar had substantial information about this particular subject. @amza writes:

What I relate in this place is from what Abū Ma<šar the Astrologer has in his Book of the Thousands on the discussion of the eras of the Greeks, together with the Romans.

He claims that Philip (Fylfs) was the last of the kings of the Greeks. He lived in the city of Macedonia, of the Roman land. The Greeks made the fi rst year of the years of his reign an era, going forward through the years. All the Romans divide the years of Philip into three parts. From the fi rst year of them to the end of 294 years they name the years Greek, because the Greeks were their kings and were governing them. There were twelve kings, the fi rst of whom was Philip, and the second Alexander. After Alexander were nine of their kings, each one of them having the epithet Ptolemy. It is a name derived from “war.” Each one of them had a name differing from the previous one. After nine of them the kingship came to a woman queen named Cleopatra (Qlwftr>). Then there was after those twelve a group both from those of rank and from the common people of the sages (<awāmm al-<ulamā>), each one of them bearing this epithet. One of them was Ptolemy, author of the Almagest.Then, after that, were 313 more years—a total of 607—that the Romans call

125. @amza 1921/1922: 48 (bāb 2, fasl 2).126. Even the elementary Gawāmi< <ilm an-nugūm of al-Farġānī, a contemporary of Abū Ma<šar,

begins with explanations of the calendars and defi nitions of fi ve eras: the Higrī, the era of Yazdgird, the era of Buxtnassar used by Ptolemy, the era of Philip, and the era of Alexander (Gawāmi<, 1–7 Arabic, 1–7Golius’ Latin trans.).

The Three Hermeses

years of Augustus, because he was the fi rst of their kings. Then, after that, to the present time, they name them the years of Diocletian, because the reign transferred to him and stayed among his progeny.127

Although Abū Ma<šar evidently did not list every Greek and Roman king, he knew their numbers and many of their names. This information would have been avail-able to him partly through Ptolemy’s Table of Kings, which included a king list of the Ptolemies and others. It was standard information for an astrologer to know. It had also been normal for the Christian chronographers to take Ptolemy’s king lists into account ever since Panodorus, whom Syncellus blames for misusing “the astronom-ical canon” (i.e., of Ptolemy), whereas he himself cites Ptolemy’s king list for com-parison with other sources.128

The thirteenth-century historian of medicine, Ibn Abī Usaybi<a, cites another passage from the Thousands of Abū Ma<šar because of his own interest in the ety-mology of the name of ancient Greece. For the present discussion, it defi nitely proves Abū Ma<šar’s knowledge of Christian world chronography:

Abū Ma<šar said in the second section (maqāla) of his Book of the Thousandsthat a country of the west was called Arġos in ancient times, and its people were called Argives (Arġayū). Afterwards this city was called Ionia (>ywny>)and they named its people Yūnānīyīn [meaning, in Arabic, Hellenes] after the name of their land. Their king was one of the petty kings.129 It is said that the fi rst one for whom the kingdom of Ionia was united, among the kings of the Greeks, was named Julius (Iyūliyūs). His epithet was Dictator (Diqtātur). His dominion was eighteen years. He established for the Greeks many laws in use among them.130

The reference to Argos and the Argives is decisive. The kings of Argos had fi gured in Christian chronography in Eusebius’ canons as one of the nations having its own column. (Eusebius had his information on Argos from Castor of Rhodes, fl . fi rst cent. bce.) The kings of Argos are also listed by Syncellus in Greek, Elias of Nisibis in Syriac, and others indirectly dependent on Eusebius through Annianus.131 Abū

127. @amza 1921/1922: 45 (bāb 2, fasl 5).128. Syncellus 378 blaming Panodorus, 244ff, comparing Ptolemy’s list with others. Toomer 1998: 11

conveniently reconstructs this table.129. The term “petty kings,” mulūk at-tawā>if, refers to minor kings who did not have world rule or

empire, but were one of many kings ruling simultaneously across the earth. This shows again dependence on a Christian canon of years arranged in columns, which indicated graphically many nations ruling simultaneously.

130. Ibn Abī Usaybi<a, 1.15.7–12.131. Syncellus’ reports on the Argives are scattered through 144–183, not in one table. Elias of Nisibis

30–31 (trans. 17–18) names Eusebius and Andronicus as authorities on the Argives, “the kings of the Greeks known as Argives” (malkê d-Yônāyê d-metîd<în b-Argāyê); he names their city as Argôs. Jacob of Edessa (262.7, trans. 199) knew of the Argives and probably included them in his full canon, no longer extant.

History of the Arabic Hermes

Ma<šar’s discussion of Argos proves that he knew at least one such source. There is no other medium from which Abū Ma<šar might have learned this information, and no other reason that he might have found it relevant. Moreover, it appears in the context of his discussion of the length of rule of Julius Caesar, showing that his source, direct or indirect, was a chronicle.

Pingree knew and discussed all of the same passages cited here, but he assumed that all of them were part of an “astrological history” connecting Abū Ma<šar directly to Hermes though a bizarre chain of transmission. As he put it, “Abū Ma<shar’s astrological history must have been hilariously inaccurate.”132 What was hilarious, for him, was that (so he considered) Abū Ma<šar invented a wild and totally fi ctional historical scheme according to which Abū Ma<šar’s own astrology came into being and was transmitted through the ages. For example, he thought that the references to Argos and Julius Caesar meant that Argos and Julius Caesar must have fi gured as links in the transmission of astrology to Abū Ma<šar.133 This would perhaps be in keeping with Abū Ma<šar’s mathematical inconsistency and relative incompetence, a subject on which Pingree, following the criticisms of al-Bīrūnī, was indeed an expert. It seems rather that the attribution of such motives to Abū Ma<šar results from a misreading of the passages in the contexts of their citation. The part of the Book of the Thousands under discussion here was not devoted to claiming the trans-mission of knowledge. Abū Ma<šar appears instead to have been trying to establish a historical basis for testing the theory of conjunctions. Specifi c information of the kind Abū Ma<šar demonstrates, about ancient kings and kingdoms, was precisely the kind of historical data that astronomers dealt with and had at their disposal, and many astronomical handbooks (zīges) contain canons of kings and rules for con-verting calendars. In short, a different reconstruction of the cultural meaning of the Thousands of Abū Ma<šar and its historical narrative is required. Although AbūMa<šar obviously was interested in the origins of astrology, the art he practiced, and thought that it had been revealed to Hermes-Enoch, whose prophetic character validated astrology, he did not construct a history of its transmission from Hermes, through Argos, Caesar, and the rest, down to his own time. That would indeed have been nonsense, and any astrologer or historian would have been able to recognize it as such.

Another indication of the chronographic context of Abū Ma<šar’s legend of Hermes comes from the Muntaxab Siwān al-hikma, an abridgement of a tenth-century history of philosophy. As seen above, this work gives somewhat different information about Abū Ma<šar’s Hermes legend than we have from Ibn Gulgul. It introduces the story as follows: “Abū Ma<šar said, in the history of the bygone nations of the westerners, that Hermes . . . ” (fī axbāri l-umami s-sālifati mina

132. Pingree 1968: 18n3.133. Pingree 1968: 18.

The Three Hermeses

l-Maġribīyīna . . . ).134 This shows that the story of Hermes probably occurred in the same section of Book of the Thousands as did the history of Argos and the kings of the Roman Empire: the second maqāla (chapter) of the book. For as already seen in the citation from Ibn Abī Usaybi<a, the second maqāla dealt with the “Western nation” of Argos. If the second maqāla of the Thousands dealt with “Western nations” in general, and Hermes was mentioned among those nations, then Hermes was mentioned in the second maqāla. As one can therefore see, the three Hermeses came up in a chronographic context, dealing not with a history of science as such, but with the main events of different eras.135

Another passage of the Thousands surviving in a later citation discusses the cal-endar of the pre-Islamic Arabs and their system of intercalation.136 Here again we see the chronographic interest of Abū Ma<šar. Two aspects of the passage are espe-cially noteworthy. First, Abū Ma<šar elaborates supposed etymologies of the Arabic names of the lunar months in order to show that they originally corresponded to specifi c seasons. Because they were part of a lunar calendar, however, they fell out of sequence with the seasons of the solar year as long as they lacked intercalated months. The meanings of the names ceased to correspond to the seasons to which they referred. Abū Ma<šar’s interest in such interlocking natural cycles is ordinary in any astronomer, but the means of his explanation, etymology and the exegesis of ancient names, is one of his favorites. As already seen, Abū Ma<šar gave the etymol-ogy of Ptolemy, connecting it correctly to war (Epic Greek psækelo|), and tried to explain the etymology of Yūnān, the Arabic word for Greece, relating it, again cor-rectly, to Ionia. In the Hermes legend, Abū Ma<šar explains the ancient Iranian name Wīwanghān, interpreting the epithet of ancient Iranian kings, Pēšdād, by a common folk etymology to mean “the Just.” Furthermore, the Persian poet Niz.āmī (d. 1209)records that the Book of the Thousands offered an explanation of the origin of the Qur>ānic epithet of Alexander the Great, “the two-horned one” or D

¯ū l-Qarnayn, a

subject of persistent debate among exegetes.137 Names and their meanings seem to have been one of Abū Ma<šar’s abiding interests.

134. Muntaxab Siwān al-Hikma, ed. Dunlop section 90, line 1261; ed. Badawī 184.4.135. Pingree recognized, but did not explain clearly, that the Hermes story must have come in the

second maqāla, but he thought it was a history of science: Pingree 1968: 14: “(The Kitāb al-Ulūf), apparently in the second of its eight maqālāt, contained a complete history of the transmission of the sciences.”

136. Published in Arabic with a French translation by Mahmoud Effendi 1858: 168–178 from a manuscript of Kitāb Muntahā l-idrāk fī taqāsīm al-aflāk by Bahā>addīn Abū MuHammad <Abdalgabbāral-¢araqī aT-§ābitī, composed near Marw in 1132 (the details of the authorship supplied by Pingree 1968: 131–132).

137. Niz āmī says that Abū Ma<šar claimed the name D¯

ū l-qarnayn was a misunderstanding of Arabs who saw illustrations of Alexander depicting him with two angels of glory situated by his head. The Arabs mistook these designs for horns (Nizāmī 2001: 73–74, section 70(9)). Most early explanations for this Arabic epithet related it to Alexander’s deeds (his conquering of the eastern and western “horns” of the earth, for example), but Abū Ma<šar is keenly aware of the distortions involved in translating information from one language and culture to another, and he regards this kind of confusion to be the source of the name.

History of the Arabic Hermes

Second, this passage on the pre-Islamic Arabic calendar proves to be taken over almost verbatim, but without attribution, by al-Bīrūnī in his masterful al-ATāral-bāqiya.138 Al-Bīrūnī often mentions his sources, but elsewhere in the same work, he singles out Abū Ma<šar and his followers, and their system of 360,000 year cycles, for special criticism.139 Perhaps al-Bīrūnī decided not to mention his source in this case in order to salvage Abū Ma<šar’s useful discussion of the pre-Islamic Arabic calendar, without discrediting his own work by associating it with the astrologer he disliked so much. This leads to another question: how much of the rest of al-Bīrūnī’s chronology actually derives from Abū Ma<šar’s Thousands? To be sure, a large amount of al-Bīrūnī’s scholarship is clearly original. Because the whole scope of the Thousands remains unknown, it is impossible to say, but it stands to reason that more passages of al-Bīrūnī’s work, as already seen in the case of al-Bīrūnī’s Qānūn,rely on Abū Ma<šar as their unnamed source. If so, Abū Ma<šar’s Thousands may have been one of the most important chronographic texts in early Arabic literature. Indeed, Ibn al-Qiftī recorded in the thirteenth century that Abū Ma<šar was “the most knowledgeable person in the tales of the Persian kings (siyar al-Furs) and the histories of all the nations.”140

After all the foregoing, it is evident that Abū Ma<šar’s Thousands owed a great deal to the world chronography of Christian scholars. He even cites Annianus by name, the chronicler criticized in Greek several decades earlier by Syncellus for his antediluvian history of Egypt. We can therefore be sure that story of the antedilu-vian, Egyptian Hermes and his postdiluvian successor, from the Book of Sothis, could easily have been available to Abū Ma<šar through a few intermediaries. Until more evidence comes to light, we must conclude that Annianus is almost certainly the mediating source for the tale given in the Book of Sothis, a work of Roman Egyptian chronography dating at the latest from about 400 ce, but probably written consid-erably earlier. When dealing with lost ancient and medieval works, this near cer-tainty is unfortunately often the best one can obtain.141

138. al-Bīrūnī, ĀTār 11–12; cf. also 60 and 325.139. al-Bīrūnī, ĀTār 25–26, a section dealing with the Era of the Flood, Abū Ma<šar’s base era.140. Ibn al-Qiftī 152.19–20: wa-kāna a<lama n-nāsi bi-siyari l-Fursi wa-axbāri sā>iri l-umam.141. Because the texts in question are lost, there is still a remote possibility that Abū Ma<šar may

have known the story of two Hermeses presented by Annianus through other intermediaries, or even through notes in the texts of Hermes themselves. Abū Ma<šar cites the doctrines of Hermes (sometimes Hermes relating the doctrine of Agathodaemon) in his own works: his Great Introduction to Astrology(e.g., in maqāla 2, fasl 7 and maqāla 4, fasls 4 and 7), his De revolutionibus nativitatum (Greek translation made around 1000 ce), ed. D. Pingree 1968: 189.7ff. and his Abbreviation of the Introduction to Astrology, ed. and trans. Charles Burnett, Keiji Yamamoto, Michio Yano, 1994: 74 (chapter VI, paragraph 30). A list of works, given on the authority of Abū Ma<šar by his student ŠāDān, includes a Kitāb al-Asrār by Hermes (Rosenthal 1963: 456). Abū Ma<šar cited the Hermetic text Kitāb Asrāran-nugūm (= Liber de stellis beibeniis), an Arabic translation from Middle Persian, in his Kitāb AHkāmal-mawālīd (Pingree 1989a: 233a–b). None of the astrological works of Hermes that he had at his disposal, as far as are known, contain any reference to multiple Hermeses. It makes perfect sense for an astrologer already familiar with works attributed to Hermes to be especially interested in the Hermes legend of the chronographers.

The Three Hermeses

4.6 Other Aspects of the Hermes Legend

If one does accept Annianus as the source, at however many removes, for Abū Ma<šar’s legend of the fi rst two Hermeses, then the solution to another problem becomes pos-sible. As Adler showed, part of the project of Panodorus and Annianus was to recon-cile biblical and Jewish records of ancient history with other historical traditions, including the Egyptian of Pseudo-Manetho’s Book of Sothis and the Babylonian of Berossus. Moreover, as already discussed, it is clear from the surviving traces of their works that among the other important sources for Panodorus and Annianus were the apocryphal works known generally as the Books of Enoch.142 Because Hermes and Enoch, both antediluvian sages, fi gured prominently in the sources of Panodorus and Annianus, whose principal effort was to reconcile different traditions of ancient history, one can hypothesize that it was in these lost intermediary chronicles, by the Alexandrian Christians, or in a work of their successors, that Hermes and Enoch were fi rst identifi ed one with the other. (In Arabic, we know that Hermes and Idrīshad been identifi ed before the 840s.)143 Therefore, Abū Ma<šar might also have found this identifi cation of the two ancient teachers in his chronographic source.144

The identifi cation of Hermes and Enoch gave the Egyptian Hermes the biblical genealogy that appears in other versions of the Arabic Hermes legend and accom-modated him to the biblical tradition of ancient chronography.145 On the other hand, the subsequent equation of Hermes-Enoch with Hoshang (or Wīwanghān), who often appears in Iranian accounts as the grandson of GayūmarT, is probably Abū Ma<šar’s innovation or the innovation of one of his recent predecessors. Similarly, in the Persian account credited to Abū Ma<šar by al-Guzgānī, the fi rst king, Aloros, was equated with GayūmarT, the fi rst man or fi rst king in Iranian mythology.146 (One wonders, therefore, if Abū Ma<šar thought that Hermes was the grandson of the antediluvian fi rst king.) In synchronizing Iranian and Biblical

142. Adler 1989: 80–97 and 117–122.143. The risāla of al-Gāhiz entitled Kitāb at-Tarbī< wa-t-tadwīr, composed between 842 and 845,

mocks its recipient with unanswerable questions. Among them: “Inform me about Hermes: is he Idrīs?” (al-Gāhiz 1955: 26 §40). The identity of Hermes with Idrīs was evidently a subject of discussion before this time. For more on this, see section 5.1 in this volume.

144. The similarity between the books of Enoch and the Arabic story of the antediluvian Hermes was noted and discussed by Plessner 1954a: 53–54, without defi nite conclusions.

145. Hermes’ biblical genealogy is expressed most fully by al-Mubaššir ibn Fātik, whose biography of Hermes is studied in the next chapter.

146. al-Guzgānī 132.19–21: va avval kas az pādšāhān-i <ādil-i musliH ki barāyi daf<-i z.ālimān nasbkardand ba zabān-i Yūnānīyān ū-rā Aylūrūs nām būd va dalālat ān mīkunad ki ahl-i <Agam-u Fārs ū-rāKayūmarT mīgūyand va laqab-i ū Gilšāh būd. “The fi rst of the just, reformer kings whom they appointed to drive back the oppressors (= the giant offspring of the Sons of God) had the name Aylūrūs in Greek; that means the one whom the Iranians and Persians call Gayūmart. His title was Gilšāh.” On the legend of Gayūmart, see Hartman 1953 (French translation of this passage, idem, 154), Shaked 1987b, and CHI 3(1).370. The title Gilšāh is also related by al-Mas<ūdī, Tanbīh 85.16, @amza al-Isfahānī 1920/21: 12.4 (in bāb 1, fasl 1), and al-Bīrūnī (ĀTār 99). Abū Ma<šar’s Thousands is probably their common source, as it was used by all three of these historians. See also Fihrist 15.2

History of the Arabic Hermes

histories, Abū Ma<šar had antecedents in earlier Iranian Muslim astrologers, practi-tioners of Sasanian historical astrology, who had already added traditions about ancient Iran to the earlier mixture of Babylonian, Greek, and Judaeo-Christian chronographic traditions.147 The effort to supply ancient Iran with an accurate chronology on a par with those of the other nations was evidently still incomplete in the time of Abū Ma<šar, because he was forced to confront the diffi culties of the problem directly in discussion. @amza was still dealing with the same problem a century later, and al-Bīrūnī still decades later.

There was also an Islamic component to the new synthesis of traditions about Hermes. Abū Ma<šar’s account, as given by Ibn Gulgul and others, states that Idrīsreceived thirty scrolls sent down by God. This information is said to be transmitted (orally?) from the early Muslims (al-aTar al-marwī <an as-salaf ). In this case, one of the early Muslims who transmitted this report can be identifi ed: an important source of originally Jewish traditions (isrā>īlīyāt) in Arabic, Wahb ibn Munabbih (d. ca 730), one of the tābi<ūn (i.e., a second-generation Muslim). He is credited by early sources with the statement that Idrīs is Enoch and that Idrīs received thirty scrolls from God.148 Nearly the same statement appears in at-Tabarī’s Ta>rīx on the authority of one of the “people of the Torah” (ahl at-Tawrāh).149 Because we know from an-Nadīm that Abū Ma<šar began his career as a muhaddiT, a transmitter of Islamic traditions, it is not surprising to fi nd that he was aware of this report about the prophet Idrīs.150 In fact, it makes perfect sense that a specialist in the ancient histories in which the isrā>īlīyāt were rooted would also take an interest in historical astrology. Both fi elds of inquiry offer rationalizations about formative events of the distant past and their ancient dates. Although we still do not know the precise

147. It is entirely possible that Judaeo-Christian and Iranian chronographic traditions had been interacting for a long time in pre-Islamic, Sasanian Iran, where pagans, Jews, Christians, Manichaeans and Mazdaeans had been neighbors for centuries. In the late seventh century, Jacob of Edessa had incorporated the Sasanian kings into his chronological canon; Jacob’s Sasanian king list is related by Elias of Nisibis (text 42 and n3, trans. 26 and n1). There is still no sign in the extant pieces of Jacob’s work of a coordination of ancient (pre-Alexander) Iranian legend with ancient Christian chronogra-phy. The Mandaean Right Ginzā 18, also from the late seventh century, contains a chronology for all of ancient Iran.

148. See Khoury 1972: 214–217, on the basis of Kitāb at-Tīgān of Ibn Hišām (d. ca 830), the principal source for the work of Wahb ibn Munabbih. See also Ibn Rusta 191.12–14: qāla Wahbun awwalu man xatta bi-l-qalami Idrīsu wa-smuhū Uxnūxu <alayhi s-salāmu wa-huwa awwalu man xāta T-Tiyābawa-labisahā wa-kāna man qablahū yalbasūna l-gulūda “Wahb said: the fi rst who wrote with the pen was Idrīs, whose name was Enoch, peace be upon him. He was the fi rst to sew clothing and to wear it. Before him people used to wear animal skins.” Remarkably, the words wa-huwa awwalu man xātaT-Tiyāba wa-labisahā are repeated verbatim by Abū Ma<šar in part 3 of the Hermetic biography cited above, where he gives “the account transmitted from the early Muslims (as-salaf ).” The verbatim citation probably indicates a written, not oral, transmission from Wahb, or at least from Ibn Hišām, to Abū Ma<šar.

149. at-Tabarī, Ta>rīx 1.173.1–7.150. Fihrist 335.21 (Flügel 277.2): kāna awwalan min asHāb al-HadīT.

The Three Hermeses

origins of the identifi cation of Idrīs with Enoch, it can be dated back to Wahb in the early eighth century at least.

4.7 The Third Hermes

The foregoing discussion accounts for the fi rst two Hermeses of Abū Ma<šar and several of the details of their stories—the stories derived from the Book of Sothis, via the lost chronicle of Annianus, mixed with other traditions—but the origin and rea-son for the third Hermes remains until this point a mystery. The fi rst step to answer-ing this puzzle is to remember that Ibn Gulgul clearly ended the account of AbūMa<šar after the fi rst two Hermeses by saying, “that is what Abū Ma<šar said.” It could be that this simply marked a break in the excerpt, where material from the Book of the Thousands is omitted. But Ibn Gulgul did not continue with another “Abū Ma<šarsaid.” Therefore the story of the third Hermes may come from another source.

Fortunately, the solution to the problem was preserved centuries later by Ibn Nubāta (1287–1366), a poet from Cairo who made his career in the courts and administration of Mamlūk Syria. His erudite Kitāb Sarh al-<uyūn fī šarh Risālat Ibn Zaydūn (Commentary on the Epistle of Ibn Zaydūn) explains in detail a famous Andalusian satire full of the names of important historical fi gures.151 It consists essentially of biographies for each name, and because Hermes is among them, Ibn Nubāta had occasion to retell the legend of Hermes.152 He seems to have been using the Thousands of Abū Ma<šar directly or through a source other than Ibn Gulgul, because his account contains slightly different sections of that work. Most interest-ing is that he attributes the account that appears in the Thousands as that of the third Hermes unambiguously to al-Kindī, the renowned philosopher credited with introducing Abū Ma<šar to astrology.153 Ibn Nubāta appears also to include infor-mation left out by Ibn Gulgul and others. Because of these important details, I trans-late the text of Ibn Nubāta’s discussion of Hermes below, divided by letter headings according to the divisions useful for the subsequent analysis. Notes to the following text, where it is the same as presented by Ibn Gulgul, can be found above with the original Arabic.154

Ibn NubātaA. [after the lemma from the epistle of Ibn Zaydūn mentioning Hermes:]

This Hermes is the one who some of the Sābians155 claim was a prophet

151. On Ibn Zaydūn and his ar-Risāla al-hazlīya, see G. Lecomte, “Ibn Zaydūn,” EI2, 3.973b–974b.152. Ibn Nubāta, 205ff.153. Fihrist 335.22–23 (Flügel 277).154. I have consulted a manuscript of Ibn Nubāta’s SarH housed in the Beinecke Rare Book Library,

Yale University, MS Salisbury 64 (relevant section = 77b9–78a13). This presents a couple of signifi cant variants to the published text of Ibn Nubāta, noted below.

155. Following the well-attested reading qawmun mina s-Sābi>a rather than merely as-Sābi>a (ed. 305n3).

History of the Arabic Hermes

sent [by God], and that he was Idrīs, peace upon him. They base on his authority their religious laws concerning worship of the seven planets and the twelve signs of the zodiac, their offering of sacrifi ces to them, and such doctrines of theirs as these.

B. Abū Ma<šar al-Balxī said: He was the fi rst to discuss celestial phenomena concerning movements of stars. His grandfather GayūmarT, who is Adam, peace be upon him, taught him the hours of the nychthemeron, and he is the fi rst who built temples and glorifi ed God in them. He was the fi rst to investigate medicine and to discuss it. He composed for his contempo-raries many books in metric verses in their language on knowledge of celestial and terrestrial things. He was the fi rst to give advance warning of the Flood, and he thought that heavenly ruin would affl ict the earth from water and fi re. His dwelling was Egypt; in that place (<inda Dālika) he built the pyramids and the cities of dust. He feared that knowledge would pass away in the Flood, so he built the monumental temples (al-barābī) and the mountain known as the birbā of Axmīm, and portrayed in it, in carvings, the arts and their practitioners, indicating the features of the sciences for whoever was after him, out of desire thereby to preserve the sciences forever after him.

C. The S ābians [i.e., pagans] claim that Asclepius had the prophethood after him. His name was Balīnūs [Apollonius] but it was lengthened (zīda fīhi)as an honorifi c (ta<z.īman) for him [so that it became “Asclepius”].156

Likewise this is said in the case of Aristūtālīs, for his name was Aristū.Everyone who became an expert in his sciences had his name increased (zīda fī smihī). Balīnūs had taken the sciences and the secrets from this Hermes, Hermes of the Hermeses. Others claim that Hermes, the master of Balīnūs, was after the Flood, and was not this one [who was just described].

D. Al-Kindī157 said: He is the author of Poisonous Animals. He was a physi-cian and a philosopher, knowledgeable in the natures of medicines. He traveled around the earth, wandering in different countries, knowing the foundations of cities, their natures, and the natures of their peoples and their medicines. He is the master of the Andalusian talismans like the Sudanese [?], the brass, and others.158

E. This Balīnūs was his student. He traveled with him through the countries, and when they left India for Persia, he put him in charge of Babylon. He had taken from him all his sciences. Miraculous events appeared to him

156. MS Salisbury 64 adds here, “according to their custom,” <alā <ādatihim.157. MS Salisbury 64 gives qāla Ya<qūb al-Kindī, “Ya<qūb al-Kindī said,” making the identifi cation of

the philosopher al-Kindī explicitly clear.158. Clearly there is a textual problem with the designations of the talismans in this passage.

The Three Hermeses

in medicine and curing the sick, to the point that people talked about it a lot, and they said, “He is a prophet,” and [others] said “[He is] an angel.” They claimed that his birth was spiritual (rūhānī) and that God the Exalted raised him on a pillar of light.159 Euclid traced his ancestry to him. [The reports about Asclepius continue.]160

Though there is a little diffi culty in deciding where citations of Abū Ma<šar begin and end, one may note immediately the solution to the problem at hand: the story of the third Hermes is attributed to al-Kindī. We will return to this point after some remarks comparing the account of Abū Ma<šar as related by Ibn Gulgul and Ibn Nubāta.

Paragraph A is Ibn Nubāta’s own introduction. Paragraph B is Abū Ma<šar’s pas-sage identifying the place of Hermes in various national histories, practically identi-cal with what is also transmitted by Ibn Gulgul. Paragraph C here is totally different from paragraph 3 in Ibn Gulgul’s rendering above. It appears to be what Ibn Gulgul described (in paragraph 4 in his text above) as “absurd reports” about Hermes, a passage he left out, perhaps considering it too strange.161 The bizarre attempt to provide an etymology for the names Aristotle and Asclepius-Apollonius is charac-teristic of Abū Ma<šar’s already established interest in the etymology of foreign names.162 The reference to Apollonius’ taking “the sciences and the mysteries” (al-<ulūm wa-l-asrār) from Hermes is of special importance, as this seems to consti-tute the earliest known reference to the Kitāb Sirr al-xalīqa of Pseudo-Apollonius.163

It shows that already in the time of Abū Ma<šar, the Kitāb Sirr al-xalīqa was raising questions about the identity of the Hermes from whom Apollonius took the sci-ences of nature. Abū Ma<šar alludes to two views: one that the Hermes who was Apollonius’ master lived before the Flood, and one that he lived after it. As we now know, he learned about these two Hermeses from a work of Christian chronography.

Ibn Gulgul’s paragraph 5, on the second Hermes, is entirely omitted by Ibn Nubāta. Instead, we have only the short reference to the possibility that Hermes

159. On the heavenly ascent of Asclepius in a pillar of light, see the beginnings of an investigation in Manzalaoui 1974: 189–191.

160. Ibn Nubāta, Sarh, 205.12–207.2.161. This section was mentioned and translated into German by Weisser 1980: 25–26, with an

inconclusive discussion.162. Abū Ma<šar evidently saw special titles in many ancient proper names, including Hermes and

Ptolemy as well as Caesar and ¢usrō. Perhaps Abū Ma<šar had heard that ancient Greek names were mostly compounds of two words, and this led him to his mistaken notion of “augmented” names.

163. The Sirr al-xalīqa was composed around the time of al-Ma>mūn (813–833) (see chapter 5, note 23). Abū Ma<šar was writing ca 840–860. Weisser (1980: 25–26), the editor of the Sirr al-xalīqa, has noted this passage of Ibn Nubāta but seems less willing to attribute these sentences to Abū Ma<šar. I fi nd no reason to doubt it, because the rest of the passage down to and including the citation of al-Kindī is evidently drawn from Abū Ma<šar as well. Moreover, Ibn Gulgul, in his rendering, explicitly says that he has omitted some things, and there is also present in the immediately preceding lines of Ibn Nubāta the interest in etymology so characteristic of Abū Ma<šar.

History of the Arabic Hermes

lived after the Flood. Ibn Nubāta’s paragraph D, corresponding with Ibn Gulgul’s 7,tells us that the source of the passage on the third Hermes is the philosopher al-Kindī(d. ca 870), a crucial piece of information. The fi nal paragraphs of both accounts diverge, giving different accounts of the student of the third Hermes. Ibn Gulgul’s paragraph 8 tells us again that he has omitted something relevant to the story of these ancient sages.

Both Ibn Gulgul and Ibn Nubāta give reports about Asclepius immediately after the stories of Hermes. One may surmise that this is also an original feature of AbūMa<šar’s account.164 Ibn Nubāta’s account notably removes any idea of multiple individuals named Hermes. Instead, he has three separate versions: the fi rst Hermes of Abū Ma<šar, the reported belief that Hermes actually lived after the Flood, and al-Kindī’s alternative Hermes. This is apparently a change made by Ibn Nubātahimself.

A note in the Fihrist of an-Nadīm relates that Abū Ma<šar had some kind of rela-tionship with his contemporary al-Kindī (d. ca 870), at fi rst antagonistic and then, later, less so, after al-Kindī induced him through an intermediary acquaintance to the study of mathematics.165 Until recently, modern scholars thought that AbūMa<šar was guilty of plagiarizing al-Kindī in his work on historical astrology, but this has been disproved by Yamamoto and Burnett in their new editions of both works, in which they conclude that the two authors shared a common source.166

Nevertheless, one may see from Ibn Nubāta’s excerpt that Abū Ma<šar took his report about the third Hermes directly from al-Kindī.

Abū Ma<šar’s text must have originally cited al-Kindī, but al-Kindī’s name disap-peared early in a branch of the manuscript tradition of the Thousands. The tradition lacking the name of al-Kindī must have existed at least by the eleventh century, when S ā<id al-Andalusī used it. The modern publication of Ibn Gulgul’s history is based on a unique manuscript of the late sixteenth century; perhaps other copies of Ibn Gulgul’s work contained the correct attribution. Because the excerpt from AbūMa<šar begins, “The Hermeses are three,” a copyist might have assumed that the story of the third Hermes must have come from the same source, not from al-Kindī,and therefore omitted it. Even a single manuscript could have preserved the origi-nal reading “al-Kindī said” for Ibn Nubāta. In any case, the text that became wide-spread omitted the reference to al-Kindī, for whatever reason, and this version became the most popular one, used by almost all of the later Arabic historians of science. The only alternative to accepting the name al-Kindī in the original text of Abū Ma<šar is to suppose that someone added it at a later date, but there is no

164. A comparison of the two accounts of Asclepius should form the basis of a further investigation.

165. Fihrist 335.22–23 (Flügel 277). Interesting but inconclusive evidence about their relationship is discussed by Dunlop 1971: 238.

166. Burnett and Yamamoto 2000: 1.525.

The Three Hermeses

reason for anyone to have done such a thing. Clearly the attribution preserved by Ibn Nubāta is correct.

Because al-Kindī is the source of the passage about the third Hermes, then one must ask where al-Kindī found his own information about Hermes. In this case, one can make a good guess. As already seen (section 3.4.3 in this volume) al-Kindī was familiar with a philosophical Hermetic text, a work in which Hermes taught his son.167 He was also the authority on which his disciple as-Saraxsī wrote about the Sābians of Harrān, their religious beliefs and cultic practices, and mentioned their affi liation with the name Hermes.168 It is possible that a report by al-Kindī on the life of Hermes would have derived from a @arrānian tradition, or at least a tradition about the @arrānians. Then again, al-Kindī knew many translations from Greek and employed the services of knowledgeable scholars of the Greek sciences. Any one of them might have been able to tell him something about an ancient Egyptian scholar named Hermes. It may also be supposed that the information about the third Hermes’ teaching Asclepius, connected with the stories of Hermes in the ver-sions given by both Ibn Gulgul and Ibn Nubāta, was derived from al-Kindī and his source, because the story of this last Hermes clearly derives from al-Kindī. Asclepius was portrayed as Hermes’ disciple in the Greek Hermetica, addressed by Hermes as his son; al-Kindī may well have obtained this information from the work he read in which Hermes teaches his son. For now this must remain speculation.

Finally, the name trismegistos in its various Arabic calques (all beginning with al-muTallaT bi- “triplicate in” wisdom, blessings, etc.) could have suggested three separate Hermeses, so that Abū Ma<šar was more inclined to combine two separate reports (one about two Hermeses, and another, different one about a single Hermes) rather than to assume that they contradicted one another, arriving at a triplicate Hermes. Yet this was no fabrication out of thin air. It was the work of a man trained as a transmitter of reports, who would rather combine all of them than omit any of them. Abū Ma<šar’s craft is found in the combination and synthesis of ancient tradi-tions, not so much in their invention.169

4.8 Conclusions

After so much sleuthing, the origin of the legends of the three Hermeses has become fairly clear. Abū Ma<šar took the story of the two earliest Hermeses from a lost Arabic chronographic work based on Christian sources. The Alexandrian chroni-clers Panodorus and Annianus transmitted this tale of two Hermeses from the Book

167. Fihrist 385.1–2 (Flügel 320.7–9).168. The three surviving passages (from two works composed ca 966 and in 986, respectively)

drawing on as-Saraxsī’s “Description of the Religious Views of the Sabians” are compared and analyzed by F. Rosenthal 1943: 41–51.

169. Burnett and Yamamoto 2000: 1.609–611 draw a similar conclusion about Abū Ma<šar’s astrological synthesis.

History of the Arabic Hermes

of Sothis. At the same time, they make much use of pseudepigraphic Enoch litera-ture and combined Biblical and pagan (Greek as well as Hellenistic Egyptian and Babylonian) chronographic traditions. The chronicle of Annianus became an authority on ancient dates throughout Syriac chronographic literature. At some stage, perhaps as early as Annianus himself, it was easy to identify Hermes with Enoch. Abū Ma<šar did not have to invent anything in all this. He was apparently a faithful and often uncritical tradent in all his interests.

Abū Ma<šar also knew the Iranian astrological tradition represented by the Middle Persian recension of Dorotheus, and stated explicitly by Ibn Nawbaxt, that all science came from Iran, and that Hermes was from Babylon (the capital of Iran) who became king of Egypt. The chronographic works at his disposal included dates of the ancient Iranian kings, and he, or one of his sources, thereby identifi ed Hermes with Wīwanghan (or Hōšang), the Pēšdād.

Al-Kindī related an account about a Hermes of more recent times who was the author of the more mundane Hermetica in circulation, such as the book on poison-ous animals, that were perhaps unlike the great secret lore expected from the ancient Hermeses. This report, which did not match those received from the chronographic tradition, was included in the Thousands of Abū Ma<šar, perhaps in order to fi ll out an idea of “triplicate Hermes” (Hirmis al-muTallaT). Whatever the motive, the result was three Hermeses: two Hermeses plus one more.

The survival of Abū Ma<šar’s account to the present depends on later excerptors. Ibn Gulgul indicated clearly that he was selective in his reports on the various Hermeses and omitted parts of the story he regarded as unlikely (including associa-tions with Balīnas, or Apollonius of Tyana). He used the passage from the Thousandsof Abū Ma<šar to form the basis for the reports on the Hermeses that circulated throughout Arabic biographical literature and histories of science. Al-Kindī’s name dropped out of this version of the text at some stage either before or after Ibn Gulgul completed his work. Ibn Nubāta’s learned commentary made use of the reports of Abū Ma<šar and al-Kindī, but is unique in that it cited both authorities by name. It gives a slightly different version than what is found edited in Ibn Gulgul, who cut out the references to Apollonius of Tyana. Nevertheless, Ibn Gulgul’s account, edited from that of Abū Ma<šar, became the standard account in later Arabic literature.

More briefl y put, this analysis comes to the conclusion that these biographies of Hermes in Arabic are, at their basis, and excluding some details, composed from just three sources, at least the fi rst two of them being pre-Islamic: (1) the Book of Sothisof pseudo-Manetho, mediated by the Egyptian chronographers Panodorus and Annianus, and Syriac chronographic tradition, (2) the Iranian astrologers’ account of the Babylonian Hermes, and (3) al-Kindī, who had an independent knowledge of some Hermetica in Arabic that are lost today. Abū Ma<šar, or perhaps one of his sources, added another Iranian element by equating Hermes with a fi gure of ancient

The Three Hermeses

Iranian legend, an obvious identifi cation of two great inventors who lived among the fi rst generations of humankind.170

The mystery appears to be solved. The legend of the three Hermeses in Arabic represents the intellectual atmosphere of early classical Baġdād, where scholars were actively translating and synthesizing all available and useful knowledge in Arabic, and where al-Kindī could write, in words famous today, “We ought not to be ashamed of appreciating the truth and of acquiring it wherever it comes from, even if it comes from races distant and nations different from us.”171 But in this case the traditions received were not historically true. They were all fabricated in late antiq-uity to support and explain the existence of a Greek literature originally from Egypt claiming to relate primordial wisdom.

170. In this way Pingree’s description of Abū Ma<šar’s astrological history as “a strange mingling of the traditions of Īrān and @arrān” (Pingree 1968: 18) is correct, although the @arrānian element is not what he thought it was, as explained above.

171. al-Kindi 1974: 58.4–7.

5

Hermes the Prophet

Early in the ninth century, the syrian christian theologian Theodore Abu- Qurra gives the fi rst known reference in Arabic to Hermes explicitly as a prophet (nabīy) (see section 3.4.1 in this volume). Although Hermes became most famously the prophet of the pagans (Sābi>a, hunafā>), nevertheless Muslims, Christians, and others took an interest in the works, deeds, and sayings of the ancient sage. The accounts of Hermes claimed that he antedated the foundation of all the major religions. This made him potentially a forebear for anyone who claimed to follow him or to use the sciences he taught, regardless of religion. The Arabic myth of Hermes as an ancient teacher of universal appeal and a prophet of science resulted from the combination of several pre-Islamic and Islamic elements: the legends of Enoch, the role of Hermes as a teacher of astrological sciences in the ancient Greek Hermetica, the Harrānian claim that Hermes was their prophet, the teaching of the early Ismā<īlī mission about Hermes, and the wisdom literature ascribed to Hermes.

5.1 The Heavenly Ascent of Hermes

And mention Idrīs in the Book. He was true, a prophet. We raised him to a high place.

—Qur>a-n 19:56–57

And Isma-<īl, Idrīs, and D¯

u- l-Kifl were each among the patient. We brought them into Our mercy. They were righteous ones.

—Qur>a-n 21:85–86

The name of the prophet Idrīs is fi rst known from these two verses of the Qur>ān. As already seen (section 4.6), Idrīs was identifi ed with the biblical Enoch at the latest by the time of Wahb ibn Munabbih (d. ca 730), in the fi rst century after Muhammad’s death.

Enoch himself was a figure of much more ancient legend. The earliest extant references to him come from a few of the oldest canonical biblical texts of the Jews and Christians. In the Hebrew Bible and its translations he makes a few

Hermes the Prophet

brief appearances in ancient genealogies.1 The Sefer tôlәDoT ĀDam, or The Book of the Generations of Adam, incorporated in the fifth chapter of Genesis, briefly reports about Enoch the son of Jared (Genesis 5:18–24). Enoch begot Methusaleh. After 365 years of life on earth, he “walked with God and he was not, for God took him.” The first-century Greek text Epistle to the Hebrews, which became part of the New Testament canon, listed Enoch as one in a series of several righ-teous and believing followers of God, including Abel, Noah, Abraham, and oth-ers: “By faith Enoch was removed from seeing death, and he was not found because God removed him. For before his removal it was testified that he had pleased God well” (Hebrews 11:5). Clearly this is an interpretation of the story in Genesis, and one can hardly suppose that it was new in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

From the third to the fi rst century bce, a literature destined not to become canonical in the Bible had already developed in Aramaic, greatly elaborating the legend of Enoch and how he was “taken by God.” These Books of Enoch, subse-quently translated into many languages, describe Enoch as a prophet who was raised to the heavenly heights and given visions of the shape of the cosmos, of the distant past, and of the future redemption and judgment before God. Although the collec-tion of about fi ve originally separate books known today as 1 Enoch, or just The Book of Enoch, survives complete only in Ethiopic, fragments of the text have been discov-ered in Aramaic and Greek. It appears to have been read widely. Due to the infl uence of Enochic works on and their importance in the development of Jewish, Christian, and Manichaean literature, the modern bibliography of scholarship on Enoch and his books is immense.2

Chapter 14 of The Book of Enoch describes how Enoch was taken up to heaven to behold the house of God, surrounded by the angels.3 Again in chapter 71, from what was originally a separate work, Enoch relates that he was brought up into the heav-ens to learn celestial secrets (1 Enoch 71:3–5): “And the angel Michael, one of the archangels, seized me by my right hand, and lifted me up and led me forth unto all the secret things, and he showed me all the secrets of mercy and he showed me all the secrets of righteousness. And he showed me all the secrets of the ends of the heavens, and all the storehouses of all the stars, and all the luminaries, whence they proceed in the presence of the holy ones. And he translated my spirit, and I, Enoch,

1. Hebrew Bible: Genesis 5:18–21 and 1 Chronicles 1:3. Greek New Testament: Luke 3:37 and Hebrews11:5. Another Enoch, son of Cain, is mentioned in Genesis 4:17–18.

2. For bibliographies and introductions see M. Black 1985 and Reed 2005.3. The surviving Greek text has, Ja≠ élo≠ éfi$ ¡q�rei oŒsx| éde¨vhg. ÆdoÀ mefiåkai ém s© ¡q�rei

éj�kotm ja≠ ¡l¨vkai le éfi›motm, ja≠ diadqola≠ sËm �rsåqxm ja≠ diarsqapa¨ le jaserpo dafom ja≠

éhoq bafæm le, ja≠ �meloi ém s© ¡q�rei lot énepåsar�m le ja≠ épûq�m le �mx ja¨ eÆrñmecj�m le éi|

søm oÃqamæm. . . . (M. Black 1970: 28). “Thus it was shown to me in a vision. Behold: Clouds and vapors in the vision were calling me and speaking to me, and shooting stars and lightning fl ashes were troubling and disturbing me, and winds in my vision lifted me and raised me upward and brought me into the sky. . . . ”

History of the Arabic Hermes

was in the heaven of heavens . . . ”4 In the next part of the Book of Enoch (chapters 72–82), originally yet another separate work, and still bearing its title Book on the Motion of the Luminaries of Heaven, Enoch receives astronomical knowledge from the angel Uriel, the angels’ leader. Although the astronomy is elementary, not to say rudimentary (the basis of a calendar of 364 days), it is presented with an air of mys-tery.5 Still another work, conventionally called 2 Enoch, surviving only in Slavonic, and of uncertain provenance, describes Enoch’s journey upward through the seven heavens, one by one.6

The portrayal of Enoch in these apocryphal books as a prophet who visited the celestial heights had ramifi cations also in Arabic literature.7 It was evidently well known enough to the followers of Muhammad that they identifi ed Enoch with Idrīs, whom God “raised to a high place” according to the Qur>ān, as one fi nds, for example, in the chronicle of the Andalusian <Abdalmalik ibn Habīb (d. 853), one of the earliest annalistic historical works to survive in Arabic, written around the time of Abu-

Ma<šar’s Book of the Thousands.8 Once the Qur>ānic Idrīs was identifi ed with Enoch, it became possible for Muslims to use the ancient tales about Enoch’s ascent and visions as a part of their own accepted tradition. It is uncertain whether Books of Enoch were in circulation among early followers of Muhammad, and, if so, which ones and in what form. There is no direct trace of them in Arabic, as far as is now known, so one may want recourse to a hypothesis of oral transmission or folklore, or to suppose that the stories were introduced by converts to Islam.9 Nevertheless, the sources prove that a certain amount of Enochic lore was defi nitely available to the early Muslim scholars of Jewish and Christian traditions about the Hebrew Bible and its related texts, experts in the stories called isrā>īlīyāt.10 Arabic historians of the tenth century and later, like their Greek- and Syriac-writing predecessors, came to cite this material side-by-side with chronographic traditions such as those discussed in the previous chapter.

One typical example of a Muslim author treating the legends of Enoch under the name of Idrīs is Mutahhar ibn Tāhir al-Maqdisī, author of Kitāb al-Bad> wa-t-ta>rīx

4. Trans. M. Black 1985: 67. The Ethiopic text (Knibb 1978) has, malā>әkt axazani әdeya za-yamānwa-anšә>ani wa-awd ә>ani xaba kwәllu xabu>ata mәhrat wa-xabu>ata sәdq wa-ar>ayani kwәllo xabu>ataasnāfa samāy wa-kwәllo mazāgәbta kawākәbt wa-bәrhānāt kwәllomu әm-xaba wad>u la-gassa qәddusānwa-kabato manfas la-Henok wәsta samāya samāyāt.

5. A mathematical analysis of the astronomical chapters of the Book of Enoch is presented by Neugebauer in M. Black 1985: 386–414.

6. Andersen 1983 provides an English translation and detailed commentary for 2 Enoch. 7. On aspects of the mythology of heavenly ascent in the Qur>ān and among the early followers of

Muhammad, and for bibliography on heavenly ascent in general, see van Bladel 2007b. 8. Ibn @abīb 36 (67). 9. The exception is the legend of the Watchers and their fall, related by the chronographic tradition

of Annianus, and preserved in the works of al-Bīru-nī and al-Guzgānī, as seen in the last chapter. In any case, this was not transmitted through early Islamic tradition but by astrologers and chronographers.

10. A general introduction to “The Reception of Biblical Materials in Early Islam” is presented by Adang 1996: 1–22. On Idrīs as Enoch in at-Tabarī and his sources (though not on Enoch’s heavenly ascent), see Alexander 2000.

Hermes the Prophet

(The Creation and the Chronicle), which he wrote in Bust, Sigistān, in 966. In the section of his work dealing with the ancient prophets, Idrīs fi gures third, after Adam and Seth, the place held by Enoch in Christian and Jewish accounts.11 Al-Maqdisībegins his account of Idrīs with the biblical genealogy of Enoch derived from Genesis 5, followed by reports going back to anonymous early Muslim tradents. Idrīswas the fi rst to write with the pen after Adam and the fi rst to sew clothing and wear it. This is close to the report, already mentioned, attributed to Wahb ibn Munabbih. God revealed to Enoch astronomy and medicine (anzala <alayhi n-nugu-m wa-t-tibb). Next, al-Maqdisī tells of a disagreement among early Muslim authorities about the specifi cs of Idrīs’ heavenly ascent. According to his citation of the Book of Abu- @uDayfa,12 Idrīs asked the angel of the sun to take him into heaven (the sky, as-samā>) so that he could worship God together with the angels. God raised him up to the Fourth Heaven.13 Another version of the same story, allegedly going back to <Abdallāh ibn al-<Abbās (d. ca 687), says rather that the angel of the sun told Idrīs the name by which one could ascend to heaven, and it was by this name that he went up to the Fourth Heaven. Al-Maqdisī relates a different report attributed to Zayd ibn Arqam (d. 685/686), a Companion of the Prophet, saying that Idrīs was raised to Paradise (al-Ganna). Among other details in his ensuing discussion, al-Maqdisīinsists that it is possible for bodies to enter heaven, and that the prophets ascended bodily, not spiritually. All the sources cited here agree that Idrīs (Enoch) did in fact ascend into the heavens in some way. Al-Maqdisī goes further in an attempt to pro-vide a synchronism between Idrīs and ancient Iranian kings, in particular Hošang (Hu-šank), combining thereby the concerns of Iranian chronographers with early Muslim traditions in a way typical of tenth-century Muslim Arabic historiogra-phy.14 As this example shows, stories about the heavenly ascent of Enoch, under the name of Idrīs, were well known and the subject of some discussion among Muslims since at least the eighth century.

When Hermes was identifi ed with Idrīs, then Hermes, too, became the subject of similar stories of heavenly ascent originally proper to Enoch. An epistle of al-Gāhiz.,composed sometime from 842 to 845, implies the existence of an ongoing discus-sion over whether Hermes was indeed Idrīs. Al-Gāhiz mocks the Rāfi d. ī Ahmad ibn <Abdalwahhāb with diffi cult historical and philosophical questions. Among other things, he asks whether Hermes is in fact Idrīs and, in another passage, what Hermes had to say about the nature of the celestial sphere (tabī<at al-falak). Although uncertainties remain about the precise context in which al-Gāhiz’ addressee had

11. al-Maqdisī, 3.11.8–13.17.12. Abu- @uDayfa Ishāq ibn Bišr (d. 821, GAS 1.293–294) wrote several books, but the one mentioned

here is almost surely his Kitāb al-Mubtada>. If the title is any indication, it was one of the models for al-Maqdisī’s work. Huart supposed in his translation (al-Maqdisī 1.138) that this Abu- @uDayfa was rather Mu-sā ibn Mas<u-d an-Nahdī al-Basrī (d. 835, GAS 1.41), the author of a Tafsīr.

13. The Fourth Heaven is that of the sun, the heaven in the middle of seven planetary heavens.14. al-Maqdisī, 3.11–13.

History of the Arabic Hermes

employed references to Hermes, giving rise to such a response, the passage does at least locate the myth of Hermes’ heavenly ascent, an immediate product of his identifi cation with Idrīs-Enoch, within discussions of the views of the ancient phi-losophers on the nature of the heavens, and, importantly, it does so at this relatively early date.15 When al-Gāhiz wrote this work, the identifi cation of Hermes and Idrīswas still a matter of debate, not yet perfectly decided or common knowledge. Soon afterward, however, Abu- Ma<šar’s biography of Hermes, written approximately between 840 and 860,16 would establish it as common knowledge. Later authors mentioning Hermes in Arabic regularly add to his name the remark, “he being Idrīs,” wa-huwa Idrīs.

The early Ismā<īlīs, already from the late ninth century, seem to be the fi rst orga-nized group with an offi cial doctrine about Hermes. The Ismā<īlīs were in the late ninth century a secretive Šī<ite movement aimed at overthrowing the <Abbāsiddynasty and replacing it with the leadership of their imām. They maintained that their imām, Muhammad ibn Ismā<īl, was in hiding; that he represented the true line of succession from Muhammad; that their imām alone was the source of correct interpretations of the divine, and particularly of the symbolic expressions allegori-cally interwoven in the Qur>ān; that their imām and his elect would initiate the

15. Kitāb at-Tarbī< wa-t-tadwīr: “Inform me about Hermes: is he Idrīs?” (al-Gāhiz 1955: 26 §40). James Montgomery (2007) suggests that one passage in this work of al-Gāhiz (1955: 87–88 §§165–166)alludes to al-Gāhiz’ having publicized that his addressee, the Šī<ite Ahmad ibn <Abdalwahhāb, was the real author of some pseudepigraphical work, to Ahmad’s consternation. This is possible, but one must be wary of over-reading the passage. It is nevertheless worthwhile to consider Montgomery’s hypoth-esis. The very same passage refers to Ahmad’s familiarity with Hermes, Plato, and Aristotle. Was Ahmad—a secretary for the vizier Muhammad ibn ‘Abdalmalik, a major patron of translations from ancient Greek ca 833–847 (Montgomery 2007, 446)—actually writing spurious works under one or more of these philosophers’ names? An earlier passage in al-Gāhiz’ epistle (1955: 45 §83) refers to the same philosophers in the same order: fa-xabbirnī <ammā garā baynaka wa-bayna Hirmisa fī tabī<ati l-falaki wa-<an samā<ika min Aflātu-na wa-mā dāra fī Dālika baynaka wa-bayna Aristātālīsa, “Now inform me about your conversation with Hermes on the nature of the celestial sphere, and about the lectures you heard from Plato, and your discussions with Aristotle on that subject.” These words imply that Ahmad ibn <Abdalwahhāb indeed considered himself to know in a peculiarly personal way what these ancient philosophers taught. That in turn might be taken as support for Montgomery’s suggestion that al-Gāhiz is alluding to a pseudepigraphical work or works that Ahmad wrote, perhaps even under these philosophers’ names. Unfortunately it was not the purpose of al-Gāhiz to inform us directly about what was commonly known in his own social circle at the time, and the tantalizing allusions here may rather be designed merely to mock Ahmad’s claim to know about the views of these ancients, or perhaps specifi cally to mock Ahmad’s belief in reincarnation (by which means he might claim accurately to know the views of ancient teachers). (For evidence of his view on reincarnation see al-Gāhiz 1955: 43, §84 and 73–74 §130.) It remains an open question.

16. Abu- Ma<šar is supposed to have lived from August 10, 787 to 886 (Pingree 1968: 2 and 1962:487n6). He is said to have come to the practice of astrology only at the age of 47 (lunar years, hence in 833–834; cf. Pingree 1968: 20). After considering evidence suggesting that Abu- Ma<šar was already casting horoscopes as early as 826, Pingree supposed anyway that 840–860 would be a reasonable period in which to expect the Thousands to have been written (Pingree 1968: 20). Without any better indication, one may assume the Hermes biography must have become known around the time of al-Gāhiz or soon after.

Hermes the Prophet

Muslim community into true and higher, actually salvifi c grades of understanding; he would abolish previous religious laws and restore unity to the divided Muslim community and justice to its discontents. The Ismā<īlī movement can be discerned in the historical sources as early as the 870s, from which time they had an active mis-sion. Based in their secret headquarters at a mansion in the Syrian desert town of Salamīya until 902, the hidden leaders, who claimed to be in contact with the imām, sent missionary agents (dā<īs) guarding their conspiratorial network throughout the ‘Abbāsid caliphs’ territories to gain sympathizers and more active participants in their anticipated revolution. Their community was riven in 899–900 when the supreme leader was revealed to be someone other than the expected imāmMuhammad ibn Ismā<īl. Soon afterward this leader, Sa<īd ibn al-Husayn, was located by the authorities in Baġdād and forced to fl ee Syria to North Africa. From there he would achieve independent control of North Africa and create the successful Fātimid caliphate (909–1171) under the name al-Mahdī. Under his great-grandson al-Mu<izz, this dynasty conquered Egypt and was based from 969 in their newly founded capital of Cairo. Yet even in the early stages of the movement, two early tenth-century Ismā<īlī dā<īs, working far apart from one another in North Africa and northern Iran, use Hermes to further the very same argument in discussions of the relative merits of revelation and reason. Both insist that the principles of true phi-losophy and the sciences are part of divine revelation, and that human reason can tinker with these revelations but never really surpass them. In both cases Hermes is their special example of a prophet of science.

One of these was Abu- <Abdallāh Ibn al-HayTam, a native of Qayrawān and already a Šī<ite, who in 909 joined the Ismā<īlī movement through discussion with and initia-tion by Abu- l-<Abbās Muhammad, a longtime dā<ī who knew the emerging imāmal-Mahdī personally. Ibn al-HayTam testifi ed to him that the prophet Idrīs revealed astrology and arithmetic, and that his name in Greek was Hermes. He mentions it as the fi rst point in an argument for the legitimacy of ancient Greek philosophy along-side revelation but defi nitely subordinate to it. He says that the Greek philosophers were “the followers of prophets” such as Hermes, although they did not found the sciences themselves.17 The dā<ī Abu- l-<Abbās is portrayed as seeming satisfi ed with these answers to his questions.

Far away in northern Iran, the Ismā<īlī dā<ī Abu- Hātim ar-Rāzī (d. 934/935), writ-ing independently ca 919–924,18 makes the very same argument more elaborately and contentiously. He says that Hermes is Idrīs, a true prophet and the source of the science of astrology as well as “one of our imāms, not one of the imāms of the her-etics; between him and Adam were fi ve patriarchs.” By heretics he means here the

17. Madelung and Walker 2000: 137–139 (English), 87–90 (Arabic). This Ibn al-HayTam was writing in 946 or soon thereafter about a conversation, reported in detail, that had happened in 909. For an account of the Ismā<īlī initiations by oath, see Halm 1996b.

18. Halm 1996a: 289.

History of the Arabic Hermes

Greek philosophers, and their followers—such as his opponent in his book, the self-described philosopher Abu- Bakr ar-Rāzī—who reject prophecy and innovate erro-neously in developing the revealed sciences. Abu- Hātim furthermore quotes the Qur>ān’s testimony that God raised Idrīs to a high place, which he interprets as the top of the mountain at the navel of the earth (surrat al-ard. ), where an angel taught him astrology.19 The implication of these missionaries’ arguments is, of course, that their imām, God’s living interpreter, is the fi nal arbiter of all philosophical as well as scriptural issues and that even sophisticated reasoning cannot refute him. These two examples illustrate the early Ismā<īlī doctrine regarding their appropriation of ancient teachings: the founders of the sciences are prophets, who establish the prin-ciples (usu-l) on which each science is based, whereas the followers of those found-ers, the philosophers, often go astray and introduce errors.20 For these early Ismā<īlīs, revelation is superior to reason and is itself the ultimate basis of science.21 Moreover, it appears from the exact agreement of these dā<īs’ deployment of Hermes in their homologous arguments that they were relating the views of their common source: the hidden leaders of the da<wa before the schism of the Syrian and Northern Iranian branches after 899–900.22 We can therefore assign this particular use of Hermes to about 875–899, the most secretive, obscure, and earliest period of the Ismā<īlī movement.

In the Ismā<īlī discussions of science and revelation just described, both dā<īs also directly mention, and regard highly, the book of Pseudo-Apollonius called Sirr al-xalīqa, a work composed in Arabic ca 813–833, in which Apollonius discovers, and then explains, the secrets of nature he found inscribed on Hermes’ Emerald Tablet hidden in a long-lost subterranean tunnel.23 This is not the place to attempt an

19. Abu- @ātim ar-Rāzī, Kitāb A<lām an-nubu-wa, 210–211 = bāb 7, fasl 1. He also insists that Muhammad’s reported admonition against astrology was not an absolute proscription but rather a warning that the exclusive interest in astrology comes at the expense of study of revealed laws (KitābA<lām an-nubu-wa, 211).

20. On the impossibility of humans fi nding the usu-l of a science without divine aid: Ibn al-HayTamin Madelung and Walker 2000: 137 (English), 87 (Arabic); Abu- @ātim ar-Rāzī, Kitāb A<lām an-nubu-wa,221–226 = bāb 7, fasl 2.

21. As Rowson, forthcoming, shows, later Muslim philosophers, some of them actually anti-Ismā<īlī,would make similar arguments for the revealed character of science.

22. On this stage of the da<wa see Halm 1996a: 5–78; Daftary 1990: 105–143; J. H. Kramers and F. Daftary, “Salamiyya,” EI 2, 8.921a–923b (922a). On the one hand, Abu- l-<Abbās Muhammad was the courier between the Egyptian dā<ī and the headquarters in Salamīya, and, “as far back as 278/891,intimately linked to the central activities of the da<wa” (Madelung and Walker 2000: 8 and 37–38; also Halm 1996a: 39 and 58). On the other hand, Abu- @ātim was an important follower of ĠiyāT, a student of the dā<ī ¢alaf who had fi rst been dispatched to Rayy from the Syrian headquarters (Stern 1983d: 189–195; Halm 1996a: 289); Abu- @ātim may well also have studied under ¢alaf himself earlier on, because the latter took up residence in Abu- @ātim’s home district of Pašāpu-ya, near Rayy, upon his arrival from Syria for his mission.

23. Abu- @ātim says that Abu- Bakr ar-Rāzī knew the Sirr al-xalīqa to be a composition by an author in the time of al-Ma>mu-n (r. 813–833), but unfortunately he does not relate for us the author’s name. Abu- @ātim admits it is true (Kitāb A<lām an-nubu-wa, 208 = bāb 7, fasl 1; text also in Kraus 1936:372–373). Weisser 1980: 54 and 69 (following Kraus 1942–1943: 2.275 and 2.278), considers the Sirr

Hermes the Prophet

interpretation of the notoriously obscure text of the Emerald Tablet, copied out in full in the last pages of the Sirr al-xalīqa.24 Suffi ce it to say here that the Emerald Tablet describes an ascent to heaven and a return to earth in the context of a mysterious revelation of cosmic signifi cance, and ends with the statement, “That is my boast, and because of that I am called Hermes Triplicate-in-Wisdom.” Precisely who or what is supposed to have ascended to heaven and returned is unclear.25 Perhaps it was Hermes himself. But what is clear is that the Sirr al-xalīqa was highly esteemed by the early Ismā<īlīs because it exemplifi es the notion that natural science is revealed knowledge,with its source in Hermes, the prophet Idrīs. It is plausible, if not likely, that the Sirr al-xalīqa, along with its peculiar representation of Hermes, was also disseminated by the hidden leaders of the Ismā<īlīs in Syria through their da<wa in the last quarter of the ninth century.26 More generally, these examples show how some Muslims, by about 900, wholeheartedly regarded Hermes as a legitimate prophet. The Arabic Hermetica, and here his astrological works in particular, are understood to constitute revealed knowledge on a par with the knowledge derived from any other true prophet. It can only have helped the argument that Hermes was already identifi ed during the ninth century as the prophet of an ancient religion, that of the S ābi>a.

al-xalīqa to be a translation from Greek, and supposes that only the longer recension of the work was from the time of al-Ma>mu-n. Zimmerman 1981 considers the work probably to be a new composition in Arabic, albeit exploiting earlier materials (apparently accepted also by Burnett 2001a: 179n2). Rudolph 1995 presents convincing arguments, on the basis of the theology clearly expressed in the work, pinning it to the time of al-Ma>mu-n. It is precisely the book’s distinctive theology that was pointed out already by ar-Rāzī. Ullmann 1980: 93–94 argues that a number of the Arabic terms and usages found in the work were unknown before the ninth century. In any case, everyone agrees that the Sirr al-xalīqa incorporates material from earlier sources including, in its longer recension, adapted parts of Nemesius of Emesa’s On the Nature of Man (Kraus 1942–1943: 2.275–280; see also Weisser 1980:55–68, and Zimmerman 1981).

24. Weisser 1979: 524–525 (book V, section 33.2); text also printed by Ruska 1926: 112–113; Plessner 1927: 99–100. See also Ullmann 1972: 170–172.

25. The tenth- or eleventh-century author of the Hermetic ar-Risāla al-falakīya al-kubrā (Great Treatise of the Spheres, ed. in Vereno 1992) evidently thought it was Hermes himself who did so. Other interpreters take the ascent and descent as an allegorical reference to an alchemical operation on material substances, not a personal ascent.

26. Abu- @ātim ar-Rāzī (Kitāb A<lām an-nubu-wa, 90, bāb 3, fasl 4, fī bāb al-maTal wa-l-ma<nā)summarizes the introduction of Kitāb Sirr al-xalīqa, where Apollonius receives the emerald tablet from Hermes (ed. Weisser 1980: I.1.2), and says that this passage is a metaphor, but he does not provide us an interpretation of the metaphor. Ibn al-HayTam of Qayrawān apparently had a copy of the work in North Africa before joining the Ismā<īlī movement, and his teacher, the dā<ī Abu- l-<Abbās, knew the work already, expressed his admiration of it (šarrafahu-), and asked to see his copy: Madelung and Walker 2000: 140–141 (English), 91 (Arabic). Signifi cantly, the addressee of al-Gāhiz in his Kitābat-Tarbī< wa-t-tadwīr, Ahmad ibn <Abdalwahhāb, whom al-Gāhiz mocked some decades earlier with the question about Hermes’ identity (see note 15), was also a Šī<ite holding views widely considered heterodox. In the context of the questions on nature, matter, and the occult properties of substances posed by al-Gāhiz in the epistle, this could be taken to suggest that the Sirr al-xalīqa, through which Hermes acquired some fame, was esteemed among certain Šī<ites such as Ahmad ibn <Abdalwahhābalready in the fi rst half of the ninth century. The popularity of the book among Ismā<īlīs would in that case be an ongoing development of a tendency already attested.

History of the Arabic Hermes

The idea of Hermes’ ascent on high—mentioned only in passing by Abu-

Hātim—thereafter became closely linked with his role as a prophet of science. Already in the eighth century, Hermes had been famous for his astrological knowl-edge, known to astrologers from the Hermetic books circulating under his name in Middle Persian, Arabic, and other languages. Once Hermes-Idrīs’ heavenly ascent was also accepted, this was evidently soon understood as the means by which he had discovered astrology. The Greek Corpus Hermeticum does refer in different ways to a kind of heavenly ascent of Hermes, but there is no defi nite evidence at present for the transmission of these particular Greek passages into Arabic.27 Rather, the idea of Hermes’ heavenly ascent came about more probably though the identifi cation of Hermes with Idrīs-Enoch. This explains, among other things, the regular associa-tion of Hermes with heavenly angels, from whom he learned the sciences, as seen in the traditions reported by al-Maqdisī, Abu- Hātim the Ismā<īlī, and the Kitābat-Tuffāha (discussed below).

It appears, then, that it was primarily the combination of ancient Judaean lore about Enoch with a Hellenistic astrological tradition that gave Hermes the character of a prophet of philosophy and science. An important testimony to this develop-ment is provided by Agapius (Mahbūb), Bishop of Manbig, called the Byzantine (ar-Ru-mī), one of the earliest known Christians to write history in Arabic (rather than in Syriac or another language), sometime in the second quarter of the tenth century.28 Firmly in the tradition of Greek and Syriac Christian world chronogra-phy, he treats the antediluvian patriarchs early in his work, and he therefore has something to say about Enoch. After discussing the variant periods for Enoch’s life given in the Greek and Hebrew Bibles, and explaining that Enoch was raised to Paradise where he could worship God, he turns to what a certain, unnamed author has to say about him.29

27. The Poimandres (CH 1.24–26) describes a kind of psychic ascent to the eighth, outermost sphere of heaven by way of a progressive shedding of the body and base attributes. The Kore Kosmou (SH 23.7)says that Hermes went off to heaven after giving his teachings. Cf. Rowson 1988: 242. For an example of Hermes’ more mundane and earlier fame merely as an astrologer, see Gutas 1998: 100–101, where a courtier reportedly fl attered the caliph al-Ma>mu-n (r. 813–833) saying, among other things, “If [you take up] astrology, you are like Hermes in your calculations.” No hint of Hermes’ prophetic character occurs in this earlier instance; indeed Hermes’ expertise in astrology is explicitly contrasted in this passage with the expertise of others in other subjects, such as medicine and religion.

28. Graf 1944–1953: 2.39–41.29. Agapius 1.35.9–36.3 = Patrologia Orientalis 5.591–592.

Hermes the Prophet

One of the philosophers (al-hukamā) also has claimed that Enoch, who is Idrīs, discovered, revealed, and taught books, writing, astrology, and calculation. Manetho, the Egyptian sage and astrologer, claimed that God raised Enoch until he strode the turning celestial sphere and discovered the signs of the zodiac that are in it, the fi xed and moving stars, the †lots†,30 the termini, the decans and the images in them, and other mysteries of astrology. For that reason it is said that his book on the stars is called The Book of Meanings. All the Harrānians, who wor-ship the idols and the planets, adhere to the doctrine of Manetho the Egyptian.

Agapius does not mention Hermes by name. “One of the philosophers” evidently refers to an unnamed authority, and the references to Manetho and to the Harrāniansare diffi cult to interpret. In any case, the text clearly attributes to Manetho the notion that Enoch ascended to the heavenly spheres, and then returned to reveal not just any astral science, but astrology in particular. The question then is what that work of Manetho might be, or what the reference to Manetho can mean. Several writings attributed to the ancient Egyptian priest Manetho survive in Greek, though mostly in fragments. They include pieces of an Egyptian chronicle, along with a few brief fragments of other works thought to be authentic,31 some extracts of a different chronicle called the Book of Sothis (studied in the previous chapter), and a poem on astrology in six books of epic meter, called Apotelesmatika. This poem and the Book of Sothis are both considered today to be falsely attributed to Manetho.32 The poem does refer to Hermes as a source of astrological teachings, but these are from Hermes’ inscriptions in Egyptian charakteres on hidden stelae, not from an alleged heavenly ascent.33 One might propose that the reference to Manetho points to The Book of Sothis as interpreted by Annianus, but this is purely speculative. The extant works of Manetho thus offer no concrete help.

There is another clue about the origin of this passage that may prove to be more fruitful. A substantial scholarly discussion has focused on the lost Syriac chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa (d. 785), court astrologer of the caliph al-Mahdī,34 and the

30. The text of the edition here is obscure: al-ašyāh. It is uncertain what the correct reading should be. Charles Burnett has tentatively suggested to me al-sihām, the astrological lots, and I have no better suggestion. In any case, the intended word is surely an astrological term. Vasiliev’s French translation to his edition has “horoscopes” with no comment.

31. The fragments are presented in English translation by Verbrugghe and Wickersham 1996:129–171.

32. Partially presented by Verbrugghe and Wickersham 1996: 173–182. For an edition and English translation of the Apotelesmatika, with commentary, see Lopilato 1998.

33. Manetho 5.1–11: “From the books of the temple sanctuaries, O King Ptolemy, / and the hidden stelae, which all-wise Hermes devised / and inscribed in charakteres with the appropriate forecasts of the heavenly stars, / having found Asclepius as an adviser of prudent wisdom, / I, having made impressions with fi gure-retaining wax, have recovered / my fl ower-gathering song, a gift sweeter than (that of) the bees . . . ” (translation adapted from Lopilato 1998: text 99, translation 263, commentary 394–401).

34. On Theophilus in general see Hoyland 1997: 400–409 and Pingree 2001: 13–20.

History of the Arabic Hermes

consensus appears to be that Theophilus was a common source for several later historical works: the chronicle of Agapius (in Arabic) under discussion here, the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes (in Greek),35 and Michael the Elder and the Anonymous Chronicle of 1234 (both in Syriac). Theophilus is their common source at least for their histories of the years 630–750.36 The full extent to which Agapius relied on Theophilus remains undetermined. Modern historians have focused on reconstructing the portion of Theophilus’ text dealing with the period of Muhammad’s life and the Arab kingdom until the coming of the <Abbāsids.37 They have not yet attempted to determine whether Theophilus’ history of more ancient times can be reconstructed on the basis of these later works.38 Nevertheless, it seems that Agapius’ history may represent a good deal more of Theophilus than previously discerned. I think that the matter is fairly clear from Agapius’ own statement: “Theophilus the Astrologer, from whom we have taken these narratives, said: ‘I have myself been a continuous eyewitness to these confl icts [the <Abbāsid revolution], and I set matters down in writing so that nothing pertaining to them escaped me.’ He wrote many books on such subjects, but we have condensed this book from them, adding what we knew could not be dispensed with, while avoiding prolixity as much as we could.”39 Agapius’ reference to his source comes late in his chronicle, in the midst of reports on the <Abbāsid revolution. Notably, he does not say that he condensed only this part of his book from the works of Theophilus, but rather that his book, as such, was condensed from Theophilus’ work, although he added to it what he considered indispensable. The astrological relevance of the report about Enoch’s ascent, knowledge about the Harrānians—who are very signifi cantly notcalled S ābians, probably indicating a source prior to circa 830—and the reference to “Manetho the Astrologer,” otherwise unknown in Arabic, all point to an early source familiar with both chronography and astrology as well as Greek literature. Given

35. Theophanes’ chronicle was really a continuation of the chronicle of George Syncellus, and probably it was the latter who assembled the materials Theophanes used, including a translation of the chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa. See Mango 1978, Mango and Scott 1997: lxxv.

36. Conrad 1990; Conrad 1992: 322–348; Palmer and Hoyland in Palmer 1993: 95–98; Mango and Scott 1997: lxxxiii–lxxxvii; Hoyland 1997: 400–409. Bar <Ebrāyā (Ibn al-<Ibrī) tells us that Theophilus wrote his chronicle in Syriac (Syriac chronicle: Budge trans. 116, facsimile of Bodleian MS Hunt. 52, 43v, column b; cf. his Arabic chronicle 220.2, where the language of the chronicle is not specifi ed).

37. Hoyland 1997: 631–671 provides the fullest outline to date of the reconstructed Syriac Common Source, accepted as Theophilus, for the years 589–760.

38. Theophilus may well be the common source for some of these later historians’ information on ancient history. For example, Drijvers 1966: 116–118 points out that there is an unknown common source of information on the cosmology of Bar Daysān for Michael the Elder, Agapius, and Bar <Ebrāyā(Ibn al-<Ibrī). Theophilus could be this source.

39. Agapius (ed. Vasiliev 2.265.5–7 = Patrologia Orientalis 8.3.525.5–7; ed. Cheikho 369.2–6) wa-qālaTawfīlu l-munaggimu llaDī axaDnā <anhu hāDihī l-axbāra innī lam azal mušāhidan li-hāDihī l-huru-bibi-nafsī wa-kuntu aktubu ašyā>a hattā lam yašiDDa <annī minhā šay>un wa-lahu- min Dalika kutubun kaTīratun illā annā xtasarnā minhā hāDā l-kitāba wa-alhaqnā fīhi mā <alimnā annahu- lā ġanā>a <anhufīhi wa-tagannabnā t-tatwīla gahdanā. I have used the translation of Conrad 1992: 331, with modifi cations.

Hermes the Prophet

that Theophilus, the astrologer from Edessa, was a major source for Agapius, he is also the obvious candidate for the source of this particular passage, which is hardly likely to be something “indispensable” that Agapius himself would have added. If this assumption is correct, then this passage becomes an important early testimony to the astrological signifi cance of Enoch’s heavenly ascent, without direct reference to Hermes by name, composed by Theophilus originally in Syriac and in the court of al-Mahdī. It is conceivable that Enoch had come to be regarded already by Theophilus’ time as the revealer of astrology in its entirety, instead of merely the simpler astronomy of the Book of Enoch. In fact, a Syrian contemporary of Theophilus claimed that the early Syrian philosopher Bar Daysān (d. 222) held that Enoch was the inventor of astrology, the Chaldaean art (kaldāyu-tā).40

Agapius’ source’s description of the Harrānians requires some comment and is harder to understand. One possible interpretation is just that the Harrānians are thought to follow the astrological doctrines of Manetho. This could refer merely to his Apotelesmatika, mentioned above, or to something similar. Another interpreta-tion is that the Harrānians follow Manetho in asserting that Enoch went to heaven and returned. In that case, the reference would be probably to Hermes identifi ed with Enoch, because the Harrānians became famous, albeit only in the ninth cen-tury, for holding Hermes as their prophet. Again, the problem of specifying the source of this passage is critical. If the source is Theophilus, then the reference to the Harrānians, and the testimony about their idolatry and astrolatry, precede both Theodore Abu- Qurra’s work (discussed in section 3.4.2) and the birth of §ābit ibn Qurra by a few decades. Perhaps Agapius added the comment on his own, based on his tenth-century knowledge of the legend of the heavenly ascent of Hermes, which had become widespread by that time. Unfortunately, there are too many questions to know for certain how to interpret the passage exactly. In any case, the Christian Agapius’ testimony about the heavenly ascent of Enoch matches descriptions of Hermes from some of his tenth-century Muslim contemporaries.

Reports in later Arabic philosophical works sometimes omit the name Enoch entirely, preferring instead just the name Hermes for the prophetic fi gure who ascended to the heavens to learn celestial secrets. An infl uential description of the ascent of Hermes appears as an accepted fact in the little book known as Kitābat-Tuffāha (The Book of the Apple). Like Plato’s Phaedo, the purpose of the Kitābat-Tuffāha is to exhort the student philosophically not to fear death and to teach the immortality of the soul. This work was widely read over several centuries, cited in Arabic by tenth-century authors, translated into Persian by Bābā Afd. aluddīn Kāšānīin the thirteenth century,41 translated into Hebrew in Barcelona in 1235, and from

40. Theodore Bar Koni (wr. 791–792), 11.3 (trans. Hespel and Draguet 2.213).41. First edited and translated by Margoliouth 1892; also published in Kāšānī 1952: 1.113–144. The

same Kāšānī translated the work of Hermes Kitāb fī Zagr an-nafs (KZN) into Persian as Yanbu-< al-hayātdar mu<ātabat-u nasīhat-i nafs (Kāšānī 1952: 1.331–385). One of the two earliest known Arabic copies of

History of the Arabic Hermes

Hebrew into Latin in 1255 in Sicily, whereafter it became popular among European scholars under the name Liber de pomo.42 A few remarks on the text are required before discussing the references to Hermes within in it. All modern studies of the work agree that the work is defi nitely modeled on Plato’s Phaedo, which related Socrates’ last dialogue before his death. The Kitāb at-Tuffāha is a dialogue between a dying sage and his disciples on the same subject—the afterlife and fear of death—but there are lingering questions about the origins of the Arabic adaptation. Several versions of phaedonic texts still exist in Arabic manuscripts today, and no published study has sorted them out adequately.43 An Arabic version of Plato’s Phaedo appears to be cited by Ishāq ibn <Alī ar-Ruhāwī (later ninth century) in his Adab at-tabīb, by al-Bīru-nī in his work on India, and by al-Mubaššir in his anthology of ancient wisdom.44 The phi-losopher al-Kindī is reported to have written a Risāla fī ¢abar mawt Suqrāt (Treatise on the Story of the Death of Socrates), from its title evidently having contents related to the Phaedo.45 As for the Kitāb at-Tuffāha, it exists in different recensions in at least six known manuscripts, some published, some not, but never studied all together.46 Of the fi ve Arabic manuscripts about which details are currently available, two name Socrates as the principal interlocutor, whereas three have not Socrates but Aristotle as the dying teacher. The Persian and Latin versions also both have Aristotle as the teacher. Dimitri Gutas has made the commonsense suggestion that this situation indi-cates that the work fi rst appeared in Arabic featuring Socrates, as in the original Phaedo, but later was changed in Arabic to make Aristotle the main speaker.47 The his-tory of the book may, however, be more complicated, as I will show.

In the examples of the text available to me, Hermes is said by the teacher (Aristotle or Socrates) to have brought philosophy down from heaven after learning it from the angels there:48

this Hermetic work occurs in MS Nuru Osmaniye 4931, 38b–57b, dated 1275–1276 (674 AH); this manuscript also contains the earliest known Arabic copy of the Kitāb at-Tuffāha as well as some of the Persian works of Kāšānī, including also a copy of Kāšānī’s Persian translation of the Kitāb at-Tuffāha(126b–136a).

42. The Latin text is studied, edited, and translated into German by Acampora-Michel 2001, with a reprint of Margoliouth’s English translation of the Persian version.

43. The standard studies are those of Jörg Kraemer 1956 and Bielawski 1974, to be supplemented by Gutas 1986: 31 and 36n61. The following information is taken from these authors.

44. Bielawski 1974: 123 and Endress 2007: 332 (mistakenly citing Ayyu-b ar-Ruhāwī rather than Ishāqibn <Alī ar-Ruhāwī; on the latter see Ullmann 1970: 223–224).

45. Fihrist 319.12 (ed. Flügel 260.5–6); Bielawski 1974: 134.46. Gutas 1986: 36n61. Everett Rowson, who has been studying this text, has kindly supplied me

with a list of these manuscripts as well as other notes on the text, from which I have benefi ted in some matters of detail.

47. Gutas 1986: 31 and 36n61.48. Besides the Persian version already mentioned, I have consulted MS Nuru Osmaniye 4931,

76b–85a, dated 674 AH (i.e., 1275–6 ce); the Arabic edition of ¢ayrallāh 1919–1920, published on the basis of a manuscript he happened upon in the service of Gregory IV, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch (1906–1928), in which Socrates is the speaker (text noted by Jörg Kraemer 1956, 488–489); and

Hermes the Prophet

Diogenes:49 Whence did the philosophers arrive at this view?—The sage answered: The preachers of the ages have always preached this up to the hori-zons of the earth. The fi rst of the people of our land50 to whom this science was revealed (u-hiya ilayhi hāDā l-<ilm) was Hermes.—Diogenes asked: Whence did it come to Hermes?—The sage answered: He ascended in his spirit (<araga bi-ru-hihī) into heaven and heard it from the heavenly host (of angels: al-mala> al-a<lā) who took it from the Noble Record (aD-Dikral-karīm).51 [Then he returned to the earth and the sages learned it from him.]52—Diogenes said: How do I know that he took it from the inhabitants of heaven?—The sage answered: If this matter is the truth, then its advent was from on high.

Just before dying at the end of the Kitāb at-Tuffāha, the sage gives his fi nal advice, recommending certain books to his students that should guide them when he is gone. The list begins with a book on the fi rst principles (usu-l) called “the book of Hermes” (kitāb Hirmis),53 and goes on to include the four books of Aristotle’s logic, named as the Categories, On Interpretation, Analytics, and Apodeictics.Strangely, even in ¢ayrallāh’s text, in which Socrates is the teacher, he says that he wrote these four books.54 This appears to argue against Gutas’ suggestion that Socrates was original to the Kitāb at-Tuffāha, for who would have attributed Aristotle’s well-known books on logic to Socrates? A similar indication is in the sage’s reference at one point to his own teacher, Plato.55 The speaker in the original Kitāb at-Tuffāha must have been Aristotle; a later copyist must then have substi-tuted Socrates, knowing something of the true story of the Phaedo, as, for exam-ple, al-Bīru-nī knew it, but when this copyist that I am supposing did so, he neglected to change or omit these famous books of Aristotle, so that now Socrates

two Arabic versions published by an-Naššār and aš-Širbīnī 1965: (1) a “muxtasar” with Socrates as speaker, 337–352 (noted by Jörg Kraemer 1956: 488), and (2) an incomplete version with Aristotle as speaker, 355–363. The latter is said to be from the notes of D. Santillana, who lectured in Egypt in 1910–1911, and the editors do not know whether he found it in an unknown manuscript or translated it from Margoliouth’s Persian version! Clearly a critical edition of the Arabic text is needed. The passage translated here is from ¢ayrallāh 1919–1920: 220 compared with the Nuru Osmaniye manuscript.

49. Or Diochus.50. The reference to Hermes as being from “our land,” min ahli bilādinā, appears to refer to ancient

Greece. The Persian text has az zamīn-i mā, but Margoliouth (1892: 251, line 555; cf. Kāšānī 143.3)mistranslates it as “on earth.”

51. MS Nuru Osmaniye 4931, 84b10: aD-Dikr al-hakīm.52. Words in brackets from MS Nuru Osmaniye 4931, 84b10: Tumma <āda bihī ilā l-ardi

fa-qtabasahu- l-hukamā>.53. MS Nuru Osmaniye 4931, 85a1–2, has instead: kitābī l-ma<ru-f fīmā ba<da t-tabī<a, “my well-

known book on metaphysics.”54. ¢ayrallāh 1919–1920: 221.55. MS Nuru Osmaniye 4931, 83b5–6: qad nafa<aka Aflātu-nu bi-mā aslama ilayya min naf<i <ilmihī

llaDī aslamtu ilayka, “Plato has benefi ted you through the benefi t of his knowledge that he granted to me, which I have granted to you.”

History of the Arabic Hermes

claims to have written them.56 The reference to the sage’s teacher Plato also remained unchanged. As odd as this may seem, such a manipulation of the text could account for the two different traditions, one having Aristotle, the other Socrates as teacher, but in both cases named as the author of Aristotle’s famous books. A critical edition is needed to decide, and in either case the question is irrelevant to the myth of Hermes.

Earlier in the dialogue, the teacher had already referred to a book of Hermes when he asked whether his student agrees with the statement that Hermes regis-tered in the “Book of the Natures of Creation” (Kitāb T. abā>i< al-xalq), that “natures become strong only by combination with their likes, and they become weak only by receiving that which is unlike them.”57 As recognized by Jörg Kraemer, this very teaching, in almost the same words, is found near the beginning of the Sirr al-xalīqa(The Secret of Creation) of Pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana, and it is described there as “knowledge of the fi rst principles,” the word being usu-l in both works.58 Although the Sirr al-xalīqa is not a work by Hermes, it has contents in common with one known Arabic work of Hermes, the Kitāb al-Istamātīs, and it is the source of the famous Hermetic Tabula Smaragdina, the alleged basis of the whole work.59 Hermes’ book on “fi rst principles,” mentioned at the end of the dialogue in the list of books, is therefore probably also to be identifi ed as the “Book of the Natures of Creation” mentioned earlier in the Kitāb at-Tuffāha. Further investigation may be able to

56. Gutas 1986: 31 regards it as “diffi cult, if not impossible, to maintain that it was subsequently also attributed to Socrates” if the original form had Aristotle as its teacher. Yet it is equally diffi cult to think the original would have attributed Aristotle’s books to Socrates. It is remotely possible that ¢ayrallāhhimself “corrected” the name of Aristotle, found in his manuscript, to Socrates; he shows in the foreword to his edition that he had been studying the story of Socrates in Arabic translation (1919–1920:475–476). The Persian, Hebrew, and Latin versions have Aristotle as the teacher.

57. MS Nuru Osmaniye 4931, 82b5, and ¢ayrallāh 1919–1920: 107.12–13: axbara anna t-tabā>i<a lātaqwā illā bi-ttisāli (not bi-nifi sāli as in ¢ayrallāh; cf. Kraemer 1956: 503) aškālihā wa-lā tad<ufu illābi-liqā>i xilāfi hā (iyyāhā). Cf. the Persian version (Kāšānī 1952: 136.18–19 and Margoliouth, text and translation 1892, lines 440–441): “He has stated that no nature acquires strength except by union with its like; and that none acquires weakness except by union with what is unlike it” hīc tab< nīru- na-gīrad illā az payvand-i hamsān-i xwīš va-sustī na-yābad illā az payvand-i muxālif-i xwad. The “Muxtasar” of the work, in which Socrates is the main speaker, provides the same citation of Hermes (an-Naššār and aš-Širbīnī 1965: 350.15–16).

58. The two Arabic recensions of the text published by an-Naššar and aš-Širbīnī do not include the list of books. The Nuru Osmaniye manuscript and the Persian give the list of books, including the book of Hermes in the Persian (kitāb-i Hirmis, Kāšānī 1952: 143.20–21), and describing the contents of the book of Hermes more specifi cally as dealing with metaphysics and theology. MS Nuru Osmaniye 4931,85a1–4: fīmā ba<da t-tabī<a; Margoliouth 1892: 571–572, and Kāšānī 1952: 143.20: <ilm-i avval-u hikmat-irubu-bīyat.

59. Kraemer 1956: 504; Weisser 1980: 68–70. In the edition (Weisser 1979: 4.4–6: book I, section 1.1.3)the text describes the gawāhir, “essences,” as musta<diyatu aškālihā bi-ttisālihā bihā wa-dāfi<atunaddādahā bi-xilāfi hā lahā. hāDā sirru l-<ālami wa-ma<rifatu usu-li t-tabā>i<i, “deriving assistance from their likes by combination with them and repelling their opposites by difference from them. This is the secret of the world and knowledge of the fi rst principles (usu-l) of the natures.” On the Tabula Smaragdina Ruska 1926; Ullmann 1972: 171; Weisser 1980: 44–46.

Hermes the Prophet

discover whether the Kitāb at-Tuffāha refers to the Sirr al-xalīqa or to another Arabic Hermetic text.

Any defi nitive conclusion about the authorship of the Kitāb at-Tuffāha would require a careful study of all the manuscripts and, ideally, a critical edition. Previous suggestions about its author include al-Kindī60 or a Harrānian (because of the ref-erence to Hermes).61 It would seem uncharacteristic of al-Kindī to create a work such as this, especially when he evidently had access to the Phaedo itself in some form, as seen above. As for the other hypothesis, it can no longer be maintained automatically that Harrānians are responsible for anything connected with Hermes. Moreover, as just shown, the doctrine of Hermes in the Kitāb at-Tuffāha is related to a passage in Pseudo-Apollonius’ Sirr al-xalīqa; in the same section of that work the Sābians and planet and idol worshippers are accused of error in worshipping created things.62 This might make it seem rather anti-Harrānian. In the Kitābat-Tuffāha, Aristotle, on his deathbed, cites and recommends a book of Hermes known to his disciples. A similar chain of transmission of knowledge from Hermes to Aristotle is also assumed in the unpublished works I have dubbed Talismanic Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica (TPAH); these include the Kitāb al-Istamātīs just mentioned. The Kitāb at-Tuffāha was composed by someone who had in mind such a chain of transmission of knowledge, and one may therefore suppose that he knew of the TPAH Whoever it was also had knowledge of the Phaedo through a more faithful translation or adaptation of the Greek, such as that known to al-Bīru-nī, which served as the basis of his adaptation; he knew that Hermes was Idrīs-Enoch, who had experienced a heavenly ascent and communicated with angels; and he believed that Hermes had revealed the principles of physical science. The earliest allusion in Arabic to Aristotle’s holding an apple while on his deathbed occurs in the famous Kitāb al-<Iqd al-farīd of the Andalusian Ibn <Abd Rabbih (d. 940).63 Here it appears in a letter, cited in its entirety, supposedly sent by a slave girl along with the gift of an apple to her master the caliph al-Ma>mu-n; this is not, however, strictly an explicit reference to the Kitāb at-Tuffāha. Direct references to the Kitāb at-Tuffāha itself occur only in the 980s, when it received widespread attention all at once in far-fl ung lands: by Ibn Gulgul in al-Andalus (wr. 987),64 by the Ixwān as-Safā> (Brethren of Purity), who wrote probably in Basra around 980,65

60. GAL S1.373; Bielawski 1974: 133–134.61. Margoliouth 1892: 190. An-Naššār and aš-Širbīnī 1965: 231 discuss Margoliouth’s hypothesis

inconclusively.62. Weisser 1979: 35–36 (book I, 2.3.6).63. Ibn <Abd Rabbih 1940–1968: 6.288.7–8 (near the end of Book 23, i.e., az-zabargada aT-Tāniya, on

the natures of humans and animals).64. Ibn Gulgul 27.5–6.65. For a brief introduction, including a balanced discussion of the dating of the text, see Paul

Walker, “Ek¯wān al-Safā>,” EIr 8.294b–297b. The fundamental articles are Stern 1946 and 1983b. Joel

Kraemer 1986: 165–178 summarizes the evidence and discusses their place in the intellectual milieu of their time. Pace Abbas Hamdani, who argues in numerous instances, unconvincingly, that the Rasā>il

History of the Arabic Hermes

by al-<Amirī when he composed his Kitāb al-Amad in Buxārā in 985–986.66 These attestations all argue for a tenth-century composition. Interestingly, the mostly comprehensive book catalog, the Fihrist of an-Nadīm, completed 987/988, does not mention the Kitāb at-Tuffāha, at least not under that name.67 As shown above with a couple of examples, early Ismā<īlī authors held that the principles (usu-l)of the sciences were revealed knowledge, and that astronomy and astrology were fi rst revealed to the prophet Hermes, whom God raised up in order to teach him these sciences. The insistence that the usu-l or fi rst principles of a science are revealed knowledge and its connection with the Sirr al-xalīqa, a work known and highly appreciated by early Ismā<īlīs, are both typical of early tenth-century Ismā<īlī writings. One should look in this direction to fi nd the author of the Kitābat-Tuffāha.

Later philosophers writing in Arabic, including the readers of the Kitāb at-Tuffāhajust mentioned, accepted it as a fact that the ancient Hermes ascended to the heav-ens to gain knowledge. The eastern Iranian philosopher al-<Amirī (wr. 985–986)reports on Hermes in his treatise on the afterlife: “Hermes ascended in his spirit to (the celestial sphere of the zodiacal signs) and became well-informed about what was in them. Then he told us about it.”68 By al-<Amirī’s time, the information in the Kitāb at-Tuffāha was reinforced by the generally circulating traditions of the isrā>ilīyāt and Muslim chronicles about the ascent of Idrīs.

The anonymous philosophers of Ismā<īlī tendency called Ixwān as-Safā>, “the Brethren of Purity,” wrote their encyclopedia of the sciences in the form of collected epistles.69 In these they cite the Kitāb at-Tuffāha and make further use of the idea that Hermes ascended through the planetary spheres. In the second epistle of the mathematical section of their collection, there is a subsection ( fasl) entitled “On the abstraction of the soul (from the body) and its yearning for the world of the heav-enly spheres.” Here they are concerned explicitly with spiritual ascent to heaven and insist that they are not talking about bodily ascent. As a part of their program to integrate and harmonize all the philosophical systems known to them, including their understanding of Islam and its sects, they provide, as a testimony to the salva-tion available to philosophers and pious people, what amounts to a list of great ancient sages and prophets who experienced or who testifi ed to the reality of heavenly ascent. These include Ptolemy, Hermes, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Jesus, and

Ixwān as-Safā> are a ninth-century work. A citation of the Kitāb at-Tuffāha occurs at Ixwān as-Safā>4.120.16–17 (in the fourth risāla of al-<ulu-m an-nāmu-sīya wa-š-šar<īya), where Socrates refers to his noble brethren awaiting him after death; the Ixwān as-Safā> sometimes call themselves by the same term: al-ixwān al-kirām.

66. See below on al-<Amirī’s discussion of the ascent of Hermes.67. It does, however, refer to the Phaedo in a list of Plato’s works ascribed to Theon (Fihrist 306.24).68. al-<Amirī, Kitāb al-Amad <alā l-abad XVI.4 (Rowson 1988: 144–145): wa-inna Hirmisa qad <araga

bi-ru-hihī ilayhi (scil. ilā falak al-buru-g) fa-ttala<a <alā mā fīhi fa-axbaranā bihī.69. On the authors’ identity see Stern 1946 and 1983b.

Hermes the Prophet

Muhammad.70 For Hermes, they say, “It is related about Hermes the Triplicate in Wisdom, who is Idrīs the prophet—peace be upon him—that he rose to the sphere of Saturn and turned together with it for thirty years until he witnessed all the states of the heavenly sphere. Then he descended to the earth and informed the people of the science of astrology. God said, ‘We raised him to a high place.’ ”71 The sphere of Saturn is the seventh and outermost planetary sphere, and thirty years was the gen-erally accepted approximate tropical period of Saturn, a parameter commonly occurring in the astrological literature.72 In the view of the Brethren of Purity, Hermes could learn all the states of the heavenly sphere by abiding with the outer-most planet through one of its cycles. Here the Qur>ānic reference to Idrīs, the state-ment of the Kitāb at-Tuffāha, the equation of Hermes and Idrīs with Enoch, and the view that Hermes revealed astrology are all used together to testify that the purifi ed spirit of the sage can ascend through the heavens without the body in order to expe-rience a divine revelation of the foundations of science.

The conclusion reached above, that the myth of the heavenly ascent of Hermes is a product of the identifi cation of Hermes with Idrīs-Enoch in the ninth century, subsequently developed and popularized—at fi rst by Ismā<īlī missionaries, it seems, and then by philosophers—in the tenth century, provides criteria helping to deter-mine whether some Hermetic texts in Arabic are original compositions in Arabic or not. An example from an Arabic alchemical treatise of Hermes, edited by Ingolf Vereno, illustrates this. Known from at least eight manuscripts, this short work, attributed specifi cally to Hermes of Dendara (ad-Dandarī), is called ar-Risālaal-falakīya al-kubrā (Great Treatise of the Spheres, abbreviated RFK), and begins with the following preface: “Hermes said: for the one whose service to the highest light is lasting, things go as he wishes. I am the master of wonders, who ascended the seven celestial spheres! I mastered (malaktu) the brilliant sun and the illuminating moon. I planted the luminous tree of wisdom, whoever eats of the fruit of which does not hunger and needs no food and drink; he becomes spiritual, divine (ru-hānīyan ilāhīyan), has inexhaustible knowledge and unceasing good.”73 Here Hermes, the author, says that he learned secret knowledge through a heavenly ascent. The passage is clearly inspired partly by the early ninth-century Emerald Tablet of Hermes already mentioned,74 but the ascent to the seventh sphere is similar to the view of the Ixwān as-Sāfā>. A few lines later, Hermes of Dendara elaborates further

70. The reference to Aristotle here is really to Plotinus, parts of whose Enneads were known in Arabic as the Theology of Aristotle. For Pythagoras, a translation of his Golden Verses is cited.

71. Ixwān as-Safā> 1.92.72. This period was known in Greek since Eudoxus (fourth cent. bce): Neugebauer 1975: 391,

436–437, and 605–606; Evans 1998: 309.73. Vereno 1992: 161.8–10 (RFK sections 2–4).74. The “wonders” (<agā>ib) here, together with references to sun and moon, evokes the “working of

wonders (<amal al-<agā>ib) from One, as all things are from One by one procedure—its father is the sun, its mother the moon,” the expression of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes (Sirr al-xalīqa, Weisser 1979:524.6–7 in VI.33.2).

History of the Arabic Hermes

on his deeds: “I am the one who constructed the Egyptian temple (birbā) and fi lled it with divine wisdom, and erected in it the image (sanam) of rtym>ws,75 endowed with four faces that indicate with their signs what happens in the four directions of the world.”76 In the course of the text, Hermes pursues a mysterious project with the assistance of the instructions of the arch-deacon (ra>s aš-šammāsīn) Uwīru-s. The priests are said to be “the spiritual being of the celestial sphere” (wa-humru-hānīyat al-falak). Evidently the text is an alchemical allegory, in which the sun and the moon stand for sulfur and mercury, respectively; the contents are diffi cult to understand.77 The end of the text explains its alleged rediscovery: “End of the treatise of Hermes of Dendara on the spiritual art and the divine wisdom, which was recovered from the subterranean tunnel (as-sarab) in the temple of Dendara, under the image of >rtms,78 in the time of king Lq>mn.”79 The motif of a text discov-ered in an ancient ruin is fairly common in Arabic literature of the ninth and, especially, the tenth century.80 As for the supposed fi nd-site, the temple of Hathor at Dendara, a construction of late Ptolemaic times, is to this day one of the best preserved in Egypt, and it does have tunnels beneath it. The capitals of the four-sided columns of the temple are decorated on each side with a face of Hathor.81

Hermes is thus imagined to have erected these pillars along with the rest of the temple at Dendara. Hieroglyphic inscriptions and illustrations in relief cover the walls, ceilings, and columns of this temple. A famous, elaborately designed circular relief in the temple portrayed the heavens and the zodiac. This zodiac was visible at Dendara until it was removed by Sébastien-Louis Saulnierin in 1820; it now resides in the Louvre. The beautiful inscriptions, combined with the obvious astrological signifi cance of the Dendara zodiac, must have inspired the author of the text, who took them as likely proof of the wisdom with which he thought the legendary Hermes fi lled the place.82

75. Vereno’s reading of Artemis, >rtms, is not warranted. His critical apparatus shows that the manuscripts have rtym>ws and rtm>ws.

76. Vereno 1992: 161.9–11 (RFK sections 7–8).77. Vereno’s commentary, dealing also with another alchemical text of Hermes, is a mixture of

important insights with unlikely speculation and some irrelevant details (1992: 182–338).78. It is not clear from the edition whether this is the reading of a manuscript or the conjecture of

Vereno.79. Vereno 1992: 181.7–9 (RFK sections 192–193). tammati r-risālatu li-Hirmisa d-Dandarīyi f ī

s-san<ati r-ru-hānīyati wa-l-hikmati r-rabbānīyati stuxrigat mina s-sarabi llaDī fī birbā Dandarata min tahti sanami >rtms f ī zamāni lq>mn al-maliki.

80. Examples include the Pseudo-Aristotelian Sirr al-asrār (on which see van Bladel 2004) and the Sirr al-xalīqa of Pseudo-Apollonius (ed. Weisser 1979: 5–7 (book I, section 1.2); cf. Weisser 1980: 74–75and English translation of the passage in Rosenthal 1975a: 246). See also Weisser 1978 and van Koningsveld 1998: 347–355.

81. Vereno 1992: 308–310.82. Images of the temple at Dendara, and the “four-faced Hathor” (@t-hr . . . m hr fdw) can be seen

in the famous La Description de l’Egypte, 1809, IV, plates 2–34. Complete plates, including images of the crypts beneath the temple, appear in Chassinat 1934–. Photographs of the site, including the four-faced capitals, are also easily found on the Internet.

Hermes the Prophet

This treatise of Hermes of Dendara is cited by at-Tuġrā>ī, a secretary of the Salgu-qs and a renowned alchemist (d. 1121),83 providing a terminus ante quem.Vereno suggests therefore a date of composition in the tenth or eleventh century. The next step is to fi nd a terminus post quem. The preceding discussions have shown that the notion of Hermes as an Egyptian sage who carved his wisdom into monu-ments was popularized by Abu- Ma<šar’s Kitāb al-Ulu-f. The identifi cation of Hermes with Idrīs-Enoch, spread through the same work, also prompted the development of a legend of Hermes’ heavenly ascent, known among philosophers through the Kitāb at-Tuffāha, which was referred to only in the late tenth century. Moreover, Hermes declares at the beginning of the work that he ascended through the celestial spheres. It seems, then, that Vereno must be right in pointing to the tenth or elev-enth century for the date of composition of this work of Hermes. The motif of Hermes’ heavenly ascent, which became widely known only in the late tenth cen-tury, might argue for a composition later than the 980s. Given that the author must have seen the temple at Dendara in Egypt with his own eyes, and his high regard for Hermes as a prophet who experienced heavenly ascent, it is likely that he lived and wrote under the Ismā<īlī regime of the Fātimids, who ruled Egypt from 969 to 1169and under whom scholarship thrived with extraordinary vigor.

Vereno’s further suggestion that there must have been a Greek Vorlage to the text, dating to the Hellenistic period and a time when the cult of Hathor-Isis persisted in Dendara, must be rejected.84 Any tourist, medieval or modern, could see the four-faced capitals at the temple of Hathor and the marvelous inscriptions there. The only possible hint of truly ancient knowledge in the text is the name of fi gure in the four-faced image, which manuscripts give as rtym>ws and rtm>ws. Vereno proposes the reading of >rtms, in his opinion to be read as Artemis, with the idea that Hathor was identifi ed with Isis, who was identifi ed with the Greek goddess Artemis. Even if his interpretation of this name is correct—the reading is uncertain—one can hardly take a reference to Artemis as proof that the text is in any way of early Hellenistic origins. Although Vereno’s terminus ante quem is surely correct, the terminus post quem must be Abu- Ma<šar’s Kitāb al-Ulu-f (ca 840–860) at the very earliest. As already argued, the developed motif of Hermes’ heavenly ascent in the text suggests the work was written at least a century later.

The foregoing examples show that the identifi cation of Hermes with Enoch had far-reaching consequences for Arabic scholarship concerned with the ancient sci-ences. Hermes became a prophet not only for the Harrānians but for philosophers and seekers of knowledge in general, indeed a Qur>ānic prophet. The teachings of Hermes, including astrology, were based on revelations received in the highest celes-tial spheres and even from conversation with angels. In Arabic, it was thought that

83. F. C. de Blois, “al-Tughrā>ī,” EI 2, 10.599a–600a. Vereno 1992: 163, 173, 179–181 and 333. The work of at-Tuġrā>ī in which the citations occur is his Kitāb Tarākīb al-anwār (Ullmann 1970: 230).

84. Vereno 1992: 333–334.

History of the Arabic Hermes

Aristotle himself, who described his own spiritual ascent in his book of Theology(actually an Arabic adaptation of Enneads IV-VI of Plotinus),85 depended on the teachings of Hermes. Aristotle explains this on his deathbed in the Kitāb at-Tuffāhaand he describes the teachings of Hermes on the occult sciences in great detail in the several Talismanic Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica. It is true that not all Arabic scholars were interested in the sciences of the ancients, and of those who were, not all of them accepted the validity of alchemy and even of astrology. However, the many who did accept such sciences found legitimation for their practices in the prophetic character of Hermes. From the survey above, it appears that this aspect of Hermes appealed especially to those Šī<ites for whom a basis in revelation was a criterion of truth. Simultaneously, many Arabic philosophers from al-Kindī onward held that the soul could undergo heavenly ascent, or mental contact with the higher spheres, when purifi ed.86 In this respect Hermes came to constitute a model for aspiring philosophers, as attested by the citations of the Kitāb at-Tuffāha seen above, in the same way that the prophet Muhammad provided a more general model of conduct, a sunna. The medieval development of this myth of Hermes will be dis-cussed further in section 5.4.

For historians today, the motif of Hermes’ heavenly ascent offers an approxi-mate terminus post quem for establishing the dates of texts and a tool for locating their historical contexts. It was possible for an author to employ this motif to good effect in a text, as in the treatise of Hermes of Dendara examined briefl y here, only after Hermes was securely identifi ed with Idrīs-Enoch. The myth of Hermes’ heav-enly ascent would be meaningful only after this was widely known to many schol-ars, and part of general knowledge, in the tenth century, and especially the later tenth century.

5.2 Hermes the Lawgiver: Hermes as Presented by al-Mubaššir ibn Ftik

Al-Mubaššir ibn Fātik (already introduced in section 3.4.6) is the author of one of the largest and most important collections of wise sayings (hikam) extant in Arabic,87

which he compiled in Egypt in 1048/1049, when books in all branches of learning were abundantly available in the libraries sponsored by the Fātimids.88 Along with the sayings of the philosophers, al-Mubaššir relates a great amount of biographical information about the ancients who are said to have uttered them. Thus his work is

85. Ed. Badawī 1948: 3–164; the standard monograph on this work is Adamson 2002.86. Al-Kindī 1950: 278 (On the Soul) explains that the soul is purifi ed as it ascends through each

planetary sphere, beginning with Mercury. Cf. Genequand 1987–1988: 8–9. The idea of the heavenly ascent of the philosophers was also popularized by the Pythagorean Golden Verses, a text known in Arabic.

87. Franz Rosenthal, “al-Mubashshir b. Fātik,” EI2, 7.282a–283a.88. P. Walker 1997.

Hermes the Prophet

effectively a gnomological history of ancient Greek philosophy. The fi rst four teach-ers in the book are Seth, Hermes, Tāt,89 and Asclepius (followed by Homer, Solon, etc.), and each of the other three is linked to Hermes through internal references: Seth is the fi rst “Urānī” “among the Greeks”90 (an obscure name discussed below), whereas Agathodaemon and Hermes are the second and third “Urānīs;” Tāt, also called S āb, is the son of Idrīs-Hermes; Asclepius is a disciple of Hermes. Each of the four is made the author of wise sayings, but Hermes has the fullest treatment of all of them.

Al-Mubaššir’s biography of Hermes, which treats the Egyptian sage primarily as the founder of a religion, is quite different from that presented by Abu- Ma<šar two hundred years earlier. It has an entirely different source, as will be shown. Later authors, however, sometimes mix al-Mubaššir’s account of Hermes together with Abu- Ma<šar’s account. This is so with all the major Arabic historians of philosophy of the thirteenth century: Ibn al-Qiftī, Ibn Abī Usaybi<a, Ibn al-<Ibrī, and aš-Šahrazu-rī.Although Abu- Ma<sar’s Book of the Thousands is not preserved, al-Mubaššir’s much less technical compendium of ancient wisdom was extremely successful and became widely known, and it is extant in many languages. Through translations of his book into Spanish, Latin, French, Provençal, and English, it came to be popular in Western Europe.91 I begin with a translation of the story of Hermes in the Arabic text as given by al-Mubaššir, with numbered paragraph divisions that I have added.

1. Hermes of the Hermeses was born in Egypt, in the city of Memphis there. In Greek he is “Irmīs,” and then it was pronounced “Hirmīs.” The meaning of “Irmīs” is Mercury (<Utārid).92 He was also named, upon him be peace, “Trismīn”93 among the Greeks; among the Arabs, “Idrīs;” among the Hebrews, “Enoch.” He is the son of Jared, son of Mahala’il, son of Cainan, son of Enosh, son of Seth, son of Adam, upon them be peace.94

2. He was before the great deluge that inundated the world, that is, the fi rst deluge. After it there was another deluge that inundated the people of

89. The edition has only Sāb, but Tāt was the reading determined by Rosenthal on the basis of the manuscripts (handwritten notes).

90. Al-Mubaššir 4.7: wa-smuhu- <inda l-Yu-nānīyīna Urānī l-awwal.91. Rosenthal 1960–1961 presents a bibliography of all these texts including their modern editions.

The Latin translation of the maxims of Hermes from this text is not taken into account in the recent catalog of Latin Hermetica (Lucentini and Perrone Compagni 2001).

92. The name Hermes is translated here with the Aramaic and Arabic name for the planet Mercury.93. This is the reading of Rosenthal’s handwritten notes to his unpublished edition, and is clearly a

corruption of “Trismegistus.”94. I give the names derived from the Hebrew Bible in their English, not their Arabic, forms. It has

already been shown that Hermes was identifi ed with Enoch by the time of Abu- Ma<šar, in the middle of the ninth century, and that this identifi cation might have been made already by Annianus (or even perhaps by Manichaeans). The biblical genealogy of Hermes given here is an immediate result of this identifi cation. (Interestingly, it would also make Hermes an ancestor of Jesus according to Luke 3:37.)As seen above, the surviving versions of Abu- Ma<šar’s account do not give this genealogy.

History of the Arabic Hermes

Egypt only. In the beginning of his career he was a student of Agathodaemon (Ġu-Tādīmu-n) the Egyptian. Agathodaemon was one of the prophets of the Greeks and the Egyptians; he is for them the second Urānī, and Idrīs is the third Urānī, upon him be peace. The explanation of the name Agathodaemon is “he of happy fortune.”95

3. Hermes left Egypt and went around the whole earth. He returned to Egypt and God raised him to Himself there. God the Exalted said, “And We raised him to a high place.”96 That was after [he had lived] eighty-two years. In seventy-two languages he called the people of the entire earth’s popula-tion to worship the Creator, the Mighty and High. God granted him wisdom (al-hikma) so that he spoke to them in their different languages, taught them and educated them. He built for them a hundred and eight great cities, the smallest of which is Edessa (ar-Ruhā). He was the fi rst who discovered astrol-ogy, and he established for each region (iqlīm) a model of religious practice (sunna) for them to follow which corresponded to their views. Kings were his servants, and the whole earth’s population and the population of the islands in the seas obeyed him. Four kings served him; each one of them, by his order—upon him be peace—was in charge of the whole earth. The fi rst of them was Īlāwus, meaning the Merciful; the second his son Awus; the third Asclepius; the fourth Ammon, who is Ibsīlu-xus.97

4. He preached God’s judgment (dīn), belief in God’s unity, mankind’s worship [of God] (<ibādat al-xalq), and saving souls from punishment. He incited [people] to abstain piously (az-zuhd) from this world, to act justly, and to seek salvation in the next world. He commanded them to perform prayers that he stated for them in manners that he explained to them, and to fast on recognized days of each month, to undertake holy war (al-gihād)against the enemies of the religion, and to give charity from [their] posses-sions and to assist the weak with it. He bound them with oaths of ritual purity from pollutants, menstruation, and touching the dead. He ordered them to forbid eating pig, ass, camel, dog, and other foods. He forbade intox-ication from every type of beverage, and stated this in the most severe terms. He established many feasts for them at recognized times, and prayers and offerings in them. One of [these times] is that of the entry of the sun into the beginnings [i.e., the fi rst degree] of the signs of the zodiac. Another is that of

95. as-sa<īd al-gadd. In the short treatise Tafsīr asmā> al-hukamā> (Explanation of the Names of the Sages) attributed to al-Fārābī (d. 950), the name Hermes, rather than the correct Agathodaemon, is explained as as-Sa<īd al-gadd (Rosenthal 1942: 73). A common source must underlie their etymologies.

96. Qur>ān 19:57.97. The identity of these names, distorted in the manuscript tradition, is quite uncertain. As for the

last name, we have for example al-Mubaššir 8.15 >bsylwxš, 23.3 bsylwxys; in Ibn al-Qiftī 7.6 bsylwxs; in aš-Šahrazu-rī 138.3 >bwsylwxs. Grignaschi 1975: 212n5 supposes that the four kings are Asclepius-Imouthes and three personifi cations of Ammon; this is not likely to be correct.

Hermes the Prophet

the sighting of the new moon and that of the times of astrological conjunc-tions. And whenever the planets (al-kawākib) arrive at their houses and exal-tations or are aspected with other planets, they make an offering. The offerings for what he prescribed include three things: incense, sacrifi cial ani-mals, and wine. Of the fi rst fruits of aromatic plants they offer roses. Of grains, they offer wheat and barley, of fruit, grapes, and of drink, wine. He promised them that a number of prophets would come after him, and he informed them that some of the characteristics of the prophet to be sent are that he will be free of all causes of blame and ailments, perfect in all praise-worthy virtues, will not fail to answer correctly questions asked about any-thing in the heavens and the earth (al-arad. īn), and that he will indicate cures for every pain, and that his prayers will be answered in everything he asks for, including the sending down of rain, the lifting of ailments, and other sorts of requests. His doctrine (maDhabuhu-) and his preaching (da<watuhu-) would be the doctrine by which the world becomes well and by which its prosperity increases.

5. He ordered people into three classes: priests (kahana), kings, and sub-jects. The rank of priest is above the rank of king, because the priest prays to God for himself, his king, and his subjects, while it is not for the king to pray to God the Exalted for anything other than for himself and his subjects, and it is not for the subjects to pray to God for anything that is not for themselves alone.

6. He was, upon him be peace, a man of dark98 complexion, of full stature, bald, of handsome face, thick-bearded, of pleasant lineaments and perfect arm-span, broad-shouldered, big-boned but of little fl esh, with fl ashing, dark-lined eyes, unhurried in his speech, often silent, his limbs at rest; when he walked, he mostly kept his gaze toward the earth; he thought much; he was serious and stern. He moved his index fi nger when he talked. His period on the earth was eighty-two years.

7. There was on the bezel of his seal-ring that he wore every day: “Patience combined with faith in God bequeaths victory.” And on the bezel of the seal-ring that he wore at religious feasts was, “Perfect joy at religious feasts is good works.” And on the bezel of his seal-ring that he wore when he prayed for a dead person, “The time of death is the harvest of hope; death is a watchman never heedless.” And on the belt that he always wore, “Consideration of the next life bequeaths security to body and soul from harmful accidents.” On the belt that he wore to religious feasts, “Keeping religious duties and law is the fulfi llment of religion, and the fulfi llment of religion is the fulfi llment of valor.” On the belt that he wore at the time of prayer for the dead, “Whoever considers his soul is victorious, and his intercession with his Lord is his good works.”

98. Or white, or ruddy, complexion! Cf. Lane 1863–1893: “Adamu,” 1.37a–b.

History of the Arabic Hermes

8. His religious law, the hanīfī community (al-milla al-hanīfīya), also known as the Right Religion (dīn al-qayyima), reached the eastern and west-ern ends of the earth, and the north and the south, and spread throughout the earth in its entirety until there remained no human on the face of the earth who did not practice this religion.99 Their direction of prayer was towards true south along the line of the meridian.100

Although some sections of this account are not organically linked with the others and were probably originally separate, such as the physical description of Hermes (6), the divisions of the other sections are not so clear. They are divided only to facilitate discussion.

The introduction (1) simply relates the names of Hermes in different languages. Hirmīs. Irmīs refl ects the Greek pronunciation of <Eqlû| of late antiquity and later; al-Mubaššir’s source thinks that this is the original Greek form, and that Hirmīs,with an h or spiritus asper, is a later development. Hermīs is also the normal way to render the name in Syriac. Interestingly, the author of this source has heard of the Greek title Trismegistos. Enoch’s biblical genealogy is trivial information easily acquired. The next three paragraphs (2, 3, and 4) offer more interesting and new material. Hermes is characterized here as an antediluvian Egyptian who founded a religion presented in terms very similar to those used for the religion of Harrān in the account of al-Kindī related by as-Saraxsī (section 3.4.3). Although Agathodaemon is the second Urānī and Hermes is the third, the previous section of the book has already stated that Seth is the fi rst Urānī. The earliest known reference to Urānīappears in as-Saraxsī’s description of the Harrānian religion, where the luminaries of the Harrānians (inna mašhu-rīhim wa-a<lāmahum) are said to be Urānī (with short u), Agathodaemon, and Hermes (here also Hirmīs).101 No one has ever suc-cessfully explained this name Urānī/Urānī, nor how Seth, Agathodaemon and Hermes could be the fi rst, second, and third Urānī, although there is no shortage of haphazard guesses.102 The connection with Harrān, however, through as-Saraxsī’s

99. We encounter here again the notion that the religion of Hermes was the universal, primordial religion. See chapter 3 in this volume, on the Sābians.

100. Al-Mubaššir, Muxtār, 7.8–10.19.101. Rosenthal 1943: 42; Fihrist 383.12–13 (ed. Flügel 318.20).102. Chwolsohn 1856: 1.800–801, after reviewing the many highly corrupt renderings of this name in

the Arabic script, considered it to represent Orpheus. Several scholars, beginning with de Goeje (cf. de Boer 1912, Scott 4.249n3), suggested oÃq�mio| (followed by Ullmann 1972: 374). But Scott rightly asked who this OÃq�mio| could be; however, he then unfortunately suggested instead that the name was invented by the @arrānians as their eponymous ancestor (I suppose something like *@arrānī—thissuggestion must be rejected on phonetic grounds alone). Jolivet and Monnot, in their notes their French translation of aš-Šahrastānī, follow M. Tardieu’s strange suggestion that it be read as an abbreviation of the name Arnebeskhenis (a name of Egyptian Horus mentioned once in SH 26.8)(Jolivet and Monnot 1986: 2.170n17). I will not add my own speculation about this name here.

Ibn @azm al-Qurtubī (d. 1064) cited similar information about the ancient prophets of the S ābians(Scott 4.257) about the same time that al-Mubaššir was writing. The name also appears in al-Mas<u-dī’s Tanbīh, 161.17 (with references to the fi rst and the second Urānī) and Muru-g aD-Dahab (ed. Pellat §1234 =

Hermes the Prophet

description of the Harrānian Sābians, is unmistakable in this passage, for Ūrānī is never mentioned in any other context.

In paragraph 4 of the translation above, where the religious laws of Hermes are explained in detail, there is an unspecifi ed “they” whom Hermes instructed. “They” might be understood to mean just the people of Hermes’ time, but at one point we are told about the things that “they offer” in sacrifi ce (yuqarribu-na), the imperfect/mud. āri< verb here implying ongoing activity. Because the sacrifi ces, purity rules, and the astronomically regulated times of sacrifi ce prescribed by Hermes here are also somewhat like those of Harrān as described by as-Saraxsī,on al-Kindī’s authority, it can be inferred that “they” here are in fact the Harrānian Sābians. When this account was excerpted from its source, direct reference to the Harrānians was removed, but the verbal traces of the original context remain. The reference to Edessa, a city in Syria very near to Harrān, named as one of the cities founded by Hermes, also probably points to an origin of the text in a description of the Harrānians.

Hermes is said to have been raised to heaven after eighty-two years of life. The Qur>ān is cited to emphasize the truth of his heavenly ascent. In al-Mubaššir’s account, however, this ascent was at the end of his life. Hermes is not said to have returned to earth in order to teach, as in the other accounts examined in the previ-ous section. Moreover, the eighty-two-year life span confl icts with that of the bibli-cal Enoch, who lived three hundred and sixty-fi ve years. This shows an origin of the account of this Egyptian Hermes somewhat at odds with attempts to harmonize Hermes with the biblical Enoch, although the passage does admit that Hermes is Enoch in part 1. It lacks any reference to science brought down from heaven by Hermes, a theme that became popular only in the 980s. This probably implies an earlier composition of the source.

The previous chapter showed that the third Hermes of Abu- Ma<šar’s synthesis was borrowed from al-Kindī. He said that the third Hermes was Egyptian and that “he traveled around in different countries, wandering in them, knowing the foundations of cities, their natures, and the natures of their peoples.” Here, in al-Mubaššir’s account, “Hermes left Egypt and went around the whole earth. He returned to Egypt . . . He built for the (peoples of the earth) a hundred and eight great cities . . .” The Arabic words used are different, but the similarity in meaning is too close to be fortuitous. I have suggested tentatively that al-Kindī derived his idea about Hermes from a Harrānian tradition. The context of al-Mubaššir’s description of Hermes also

2.308.15–309.2; trans. 2.465 = bāb 52 fī Dikr al-kihāna, etc.; Pellat emends the name to Orpheus) and in aš-Šahrazu-rī, 136.2, as >wry>. The damaged page 1a of Chester Beatty Arabic MS 5153 (copied in 1360 ce), introducing the Hermetic Kitāb Zagr an-nafs under the title of The Codex of Agathodaemon (Mushaf Ġu-TāDīmu-n), offers another interpretation of the name. Using information derived from paragraph 2 of al-Mubaššir’s account of Hermes, translated here, it says that Seth, Agathodaemon, and Hermes were the fi rst, second, and third Urānīs, but it adds (1a6) that the meaning of Urānī, [>wr>ny] is nu-rānī(“luminous” in Arabic). This interpretation is apparently based on the Hebrew word or, [>wr], “light.”

History of the Arabic Hermes

appears to be Harrānian. In light of the coincidences of content and context, I assume that al-Mubaššir’s and al-Kindī’s accounts derive from a source common to both of them. This might have been an older Harrānian tradition; it is also possible that the common source was a chronographic work known to both al-Kindī and al-Mubaššir’s source. There are nevertheless major differences between al-Mubaššir’s account and that of al-Kindī. Hermes is explicitly antediluvian in the former, explicitly postdilu-vian in the latter.103 In the former, Hermes founds a primordial, worldwide, revealed religion; in the latter, Hermes is merely a scholar whose books are still known.

The physical description of Hermes (6) is a part of al-Mubaššir’s general method. He includes similar physical descriptions of other philosophers elsewhere in the book, which was originally illustrated.104 The illustration of Hermes unfortunately does not survive, but it is reasonable to suppose that the physical descriptions are related to the illustrations. The paragraph dealing with the inscriptions on Hermes’ rings and belt buckles (7) is clearly part of a pre-Islamic genre: records of maxims inscribed on rings of famous individuals are attested in Arabic texts of Iranian ori-gin.105 This portion is surely an excerpt from a larger collection of wise maxims adapted for the present purpose of describing Hermes. We will return to the discus-sion of such adaptations in section 5.3 in this volume.

The last paragraph (8) describes the religion founded by Hermes as al-milla al-hanīfīya, “the hanīfī community.”106 Although the word here means primarily “pagan,” it is a term that meant different things to different communities at different times. As F. de Blois has shown with a decisive analysis, the Aramaic word hanpā,together with its Arabic equivalent hanīf,107 went through a complicated evolution in different religious communities. To explain what this word signifi ed in the time

103. To be precise, the statement that Hermes was after the Flood is not present in al-Kindī’s words as related by Ibn Nubāta. It is found only in Ibn Gulgul’s version.

104. One of the Arabic manuscripts of al-Mubaššir (Istanbul Topkapı Saray Ahmet III, 3206, copied thirteenth cent.) is accompanied by depictions of the philosophers; unfortunately, the miniature of Hermes is missing, apparently “the result of the nefarious activities of an art lover who tore out the page containing the picture” (Rosenthal 1975b: 213; also Rosenthal 1961: 142). Another manuscript of the same text (Chester Beatty Arabic 3027, copied 1221 ce) contains blank spaces where the miniatures were supposed to be added but never were. The blank space for the depiction of Hermes has the caption, “The picture of Idrīs, peace be upon him, while he is speaking to and exhorting King Ammon.” Rosenthal suggests (1975b: 213) that the illustrations intended for these early manuscripts were based on copies of original miniatures commissioned by the author, al-Mubaššir himself.

105. In Kitāb Adāb al-falāsifa, al-Ansārī’s collection of aphorisms, one of the same bezel inscriptions of Hermes occurs in a list of the sayings on the rings of many ancient philosophers (al-Ansārī 48.6). The origins of and the relationship between al-Mubaššir’s list of Hermes’ ring and belt inscriptions and al-Ansārī’s list of the different philosophers’ ring inscriptions are not clear. In any case, the motif of wise sayings inscribed on the seal rings of kinds is a well attested in Iranian literature but not in Greek (Shaked 1986: 85–87; Zakeri 2004: 180).

106. The @arrānians are called al-hanīfīya also in as-Saraxsī’s treatise: Fihrist 383.12 (ed. Flügel 318.19).

107. The Aramaic and Arabic words hanpā and hanīf are formed from the same etymological root but are not, strictly speaking, cognates. On the relationship between the two words, awkward to resolve, see the best available analysis: de Blois 2002: 23.

Hermes the Prophet

of al-Mubaššir, or for his later readers, it is worthwhile here to recapitulate his argu-ment in brief.108 By the time of the Syriac Aramaic translation of the Bible in the second century ce, Aramaic hanpā, meaning originally something like “deceiver,” came to signify in a derogatory way “gentile” (éhmijæ|), or non-Judaean. Christian speakers of Aramaic continued to use the term to refer to pagans, and the Greek ethnonym “Hellene” ( % Ekkgm) became synonymous with it. Among later Christians using Arabic, the Arabic equivalent hanīf kept the same negative meaning, referring to pagans or non-Christians. Meanwhile, another interpretation of the term had developed: legends about Abraham, progenitor of both the Jews and Arabs, described him as a gentile (Arabic hanīf ), or as the one through whom the gentiles (hunafā>)would be saved. The latter theme was elaborated already in Paul’s letters to the Galatians and Romans. Abraham there is not a polytheist, but he is not a Jew either. Now, the Arabs were thought to be descendants of Abraham, through Hagar, although they were gentiles. The Qur>ān refl ects this tradition about Abraham when it describes him as a hanīf. This probably meant here just “gentile,” or at least a per-son not bound by Jewish law, but as terminology developed by which Muhammad’s followers identifi ed themselves as members of a confessionally separate group, the word describing Abraham’s religion took on a new, more positive meaning based on the Qur>ānic usage. In this new context, the hanīfī religion of Abraham, Muhammad’s predecessor, came to be regarded as the ancient monotheistic ante-cedent of Islam. Moreover, because Abraham is qualifi ed in the Qur>ān as a hanīfmuslim, a “gentile submissive (to God),” the term hanīf was understood by some exegetes, after Muhammad’s death, to be practically equivalent to muslim.109 The different histories of the word in the different communities had two results. Christians used the word in a negative way to describe both Muslims and pagans, but Muslims used the term in a decidedly positive way to describe the religion of Muhammad and the prophets who were his forerunners, and even as a synonym for Muslim. For a fuller discussion, I refer the reader to de Blois’ study.

The description of the religion of Hermes as hanīfīya in section (8) of al-Mubaššir’s account is therefore potentially quite confusing. Inasmuch as the religion allegedly founded by Hermes was paganism, however that was understood, there can be no doubt that hanīf here was meant in the sense of “pagan,” like Aramaic hanpā. For a Christian, the term is a negative one, but for pagans of Harrān, it bore, as for Muslims, positive connotations. Thus in a famous Syriac passage attributed to §ābitibn Qurra, the religion of the hanpe (pagans), that is, hanpu-tā or “paganism,” is praised and defended against Christianity.110 It must have been convenient for the Harrānian pagans, like §ābit, that the Arabic word hanīf had by the ninth century

108. de Blois 2002: 16–25.109. On the problem of the development of the term muslim, see Donner 2002–2003, and also

Hoyland 1997: 545–550 to temper Donner’s view of a totally indistinct confessional identity. Hoyland 1997: 414n88 provides early non-Muslim attestations of the term muslim.

110. Bar <Ebrāyā, Syriac chronicle, trans. Budge 153, Bodleian MS Hunt. 52 facsimile 55r.b39–56v.a19.

History of the Arabic Hermes

taken on such positive connotations in the Arabic of their Muslim rulers, for now they could claim not only to be the S ābians mentioned in the Qur>ān as a licit sect, but also to be following the hanīfī religion, like Abraham, who, according to Genesis11:31, had indeed dwelled in Harrān.111 Al-Mubaššir’s source was thus exploiting the positive evaluation of the term hanīf among Muslims for the promotion of the sta-tus of the Harrānian (pagan) religion and the teachings of Hermes in the eyes of Muslims.112 The direct implication of this conclusion, combined with the foregoing evidence, is that the source of the passage is a Harrānian Sābian author.

The end of the passage insinuates the religion of Hermes further into the imag-ined prehistory of Islam with a clear Qur>ānic reference. The religion of Hermes and his hanīfī community (al-milla al-hanīfīya) is described as dīn al-qayyima, roughly, “the Right Religion.” The phrase is from the Qur>ān 98:2–5, in which the term describes the religion brought by “an apostle from God reciting purifi ed scrolls in which are right scriptures. Those who received the book went their separate ways only after the clear proof came to them. They were ordered only to worship God, sincerely practic-ing his religion as hunafā>, and to practice prayer and to bring alms. That is the Right Religion (dīn al-qayyima).” The precise interpretation of the phrases in this passage, like so many Qur>ānic passages, is open for discussion. However, al-Mubaššir’s source could not have connected the religion of Hermes with the hunafā> of the Qur>ānmore clearly. The implication is that this short Qur>ānic su-ra is really referring to the ancient revelation of Hermes. The remaining verses of su-ra 98 tell how the unbeliev-ers and the polytheists will go to hell, whereas those who believe rightly are saved. If one were to pursue the implication of the reference to the Right Religion, found in al-Mubaššir’s description of Hermes’ teaching, to its conclusion, by reading it in its entire context, we fi nd the true, monotheist “pagans,” or hunafā>, distinguished sharply from the actual polytheists (mušriku-n), the former being saved, and the latter, who went astray from the message of Hermes, destined for hell.

Compared with the biographies of Hermes presented by Abu- Ma<šar, the treat-ment of Hermes here is much more concerned with Hermes’ religious teaching. Moreover, Hermes is not the name of three individuals but only one ancient fi gure (though there are at least three Urānīs). The source of the passage was evidently primarily concerned with Hermes’ role as a lawgiver for the ancient religion. This again points to a Harrānian background, for the Harrānian Sābians were the only group known to regard Hermes as a prophet of their own whose religion they fol-lowed. The wise sayings of Hermes related by al-Mubaššir immediately after this biography, discussed at length in the next section (5.3), are to a great extent in the form of religious and ethical commandments, demonstrating Hermes’ prophetic

111. Tardieu 1986: 8–9, also makes this point.112. Levy-Rubin 2003: 214–222 provides examples of the confusion about the term hanīf in Arabic

in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, and authors asserting or denying that the @arrānianSābians could rightly be called hunafā>. As noted above, the @arrānian religion was called al-hanīfīya as early as as-Saraxsī (Fihrist 383.12; ed. Flügel 318.19) in the later ninth century.

Hermes the Prophet

character. Although the precise sources of these passages remain unknown, it nev-ertheless seems likely that a Harrānian background underlies much of the account. The analysis in section 5.3 below will strengthen this hypothesis further.

As I have argued, the treatment of the prophet Seth, the “fi rst Urānī,” and that of Hermes, the “third Urānī,” immediately following are from the same source. A glance at maxims of Seth fortifi es the conclusion that this source was a HarrānianSābian. They begin with a list of the sixteen virtues that must be in “believers and hanīfīs,” fī l-mu>min wa-l-hanīfī. Most of these virtues are ordinary: one must do good, protect the poor, speak the truth, and so forth, but the fourteenth virtue is “animal sacrifi ces and offerings in thanks to God the Exalted for the benefactions he has given to His creation.”113 Both Seth and Hermes teach the hanīfī religion involv-ing animal sacrifi ces and offerings to God. It seems unlikely that a Muslim, Christian, or Jew would want to promote Seth and Hermes as a teacher of such rites.

Al-Mubaššir’s account of Hermes was the only successful alternative to that of Abu- Ma<šar. It described only one Hermes, not three, and it emphasized much more strongly the role of Hermes as the founder of a primordial religion. Besides its career in Arabic, al-Mubaššir’s collection as a whole was translated into the languages of Western Europe. The numerous vernacular versions attest to its popularity. Franz Rosenthal has provided a succinct overview of these translations, all of which lack the attribution of authorship to al-Mubaššir but were transmitted anonymously.114

A somewhat abbreviated version of the text circulated in a Latin translation of the Spanish, made near the end of the thirteenth century, under the title Liber philoso-phorum moralium antiquorum. The portion of this text relating the brief biography of Hermes and his wise sayings has gone unnoticed in the recent and very useful catalog of the medieval Latin Hermetica.115 But al-Mubaššir’s treatment of Hermes is important for the Latin tradition, for it seems likely that it, together with the max-ims of Hermes, was known to the Italian scholars of the late fi fteenth century, such as Ficino, who took a new and special interest in the Greek Corpus Hermeticum. This description of Hermes’ teachings testifi ed that Hermes was an antediluvian sage and teacher of holy rituals regulated astrologically. The Latin text relates a shortened version of the biography of Hermes as follows:

Hermes in Egipto natus fuit, et Hermes in greco dicitur, Mercurius latine, et in ebrayco Enoch; qui fuit fi lius Jared, fi lii Macthalaleb, fi lii Quenam, fi lii Enoy, fi lii Sed, fi lii Adam. Et fuit ante magnum diluvium quod mundum submersit; post quod fuit aliud diluvium quod submersit Egiptum tantum. Et recessit Hermes de Egipto et ambulavit totam terram octoginta et duobus annis, invitans omnes ad obediendum Deo cum septuaginta et duabus

113. al-Mubaššir 5.3–4: ad-dahāyā wa-l-qarābīnu šukran li-llāhi ta<ālā <alā mā awlā xalqahu- mina n-ni<ami.

114. Rosenthal 1960–1961: 133–135 and 149–155.115. Lucentini and Perrone Compagni 2001.

History of the Arabic Hermes

linguis, et construxit centum et octo villas et instruxit eas scientiis. Et fuit primus inventor scientie stellarum; et stabilivit omni populo cuiuslibet cli-matis legem pertinentem et convenientem suis opinionibus. Cui obedierunt reges et tota terra, et habitantes insulas maris. Et invitavit omnes ad legem Dei et ad confi tendum veritatem, et ad horrendum mundum et observan-dam iusticiam et querendam salvationem alterius mundi. Et mandavit fi eri orationes et ieiunare die sabbati quolibet mense et expugnare inimicos fi dei, et dare hiis qui Dei sunt peccuniam ut auxiliarentur per eam debiles et impo-tentes; et prohibuit eos comedere carnes porcinas et zebrarum et camelo-rum, et alios similes cibos. Et inhibuit eos quovis inebriari vino, et stabilivit festivitates multas certis temporibus, et offerre sacrifi cia, aliqua ex eis in introitu solis, in principio signorum, et aliqua in prima visione lune et in coniunctione planetarum, et etiam quando planete intrabunt domos suas proprias et exaltationes suas, aut in aspectibus planetarum. Et offerebant sac-rifi cia de rebus omnibus, de fl oribus scilicet rosas, et de granis ordeum et triticum, et de fructibus uvam et de potibus vinum.116

Hermes was born in Egypt, and he is called Hermes in Greek, Mercury in Latin, and in Hebrew, Enoch. He was the son of Jared, son of Machtalaleb, son of Quenam, son of Enoy, son of Sed, son of Adam. He was before the great fl ood that submerged the world, after which there was another fl ood that sub-merged just Egypt. Hermes withdrew from Egypt and traveled the whole world for eighty-two years, calling all, with seventy-two languages, to obey God. He built one hundred and eight towns and taught them in the sciences. He was the fi rst discoverer of the science of the stars, and he established for every people of each climate a law applying to and fi tting for their views. Kings, and the entire world, and the inhabitants of the islands of the sea obeyed him. He called all to the law of God and to confess the truth, to dread the world, to observe justice, and to seek the salvation of the other world. He ordered that there be speeches and fasting on the day of the sabbath in each month, fi ghting of the enemies of the faith, giving of money to those who are of God in order that the weak and powerless be assisted through it. He for-bade them to eat the meat of pigs, asses, camels, and other similar foods. He kept them from being drunk on any wine, and established many festivals for particular times. [He ordered them] to offer sacrifi ces, some from them at the entrance of the sun in the fi rst degree of the zodiacal signs, and some at the fi rst sight of the moon, and at the conjunction of the planets, and also when the planets entered their own houses and exaltations, or in the aspects of the planets. They offered sacrifi ces of all things, of fl owers such as roses, and of grains, barley and wheat, and of fruits, grapes, and of drinks, wine.

116. Ed. Franceschini 1931–1932: 402–403.

Hermes the Prophet

The European translations, beginning with the Spanish version from which this Latin text was made, notably leave out the part about prophets after Hermes, and the characteristics of the true prophet, as well as the rest of the account thereafter. The eleven extant Latin manuscripts have been dated to the fourteenth and fi fteenth centuries; four of them are in Italy today, further supporting the notion that the text would have been available to those around Ficino in the late fi fteenth century.117 In any case, it can be taken for granted that some readers of the Greek Corpus Hermeticum in its fi rst Latin translation (originally published in 1471) would have been familiar already with the story of Hermes presented here, not to mention the wise maxims and commands of Hermes. These maxims of Hermes in the Spanish and Latin versions also include the short text of the Testament of Hermes to Ammon,analyzed below, Ammon being a name of one of Hermes’ students also found in the better known work Asclepius.118 It is likely therefore that al-Mubaššir’s text, perhaps ultimately of Harrānian Sābian derivation, was a factor conditioning the reception of the Hermetica in Renaissance Europe. It is for specialists in Italian scholarship of fi fteenth century to determine whether the Liber philosophorum moralium antiquo-rum had any importance for this region and period, and in particular for the fi rst printing of the Corpus Hermeticum in Latin translation. The text in its European versions should in any case be taken into account in studies of European Hermetica.

It is certain at least that some English readers of Ficino’s translation of the Corpus Hermeticum (entitled Pimander) were also aware of al-Mubaššir’s account of Hermes, which appeared in Caxton’s English translation (printed 1477). We see this from William Baldwin’s Treatise of Morall Phylosophie (fi rst printed 1547, expanded and rearranged by Thomas Palfreyman ca 1635), which cites “approximately a quar-ter” of the sayings of Hermes from Caxton right alongside material from Ficino’s preface to the Pimander (fi rst printed 1491), without distinguishing clearly between these two sources of information about Hermes.119 Baldwin had two biographical reports about Hermes: one from Ficino, who took it from Augustine, and the other ultimately from al-Mubaššir. The confl ict between the two accounts arouses Baldwin’s comment:

Hermes, otherwise called Mercurius Trismegistus, was not only the most excellent of the philosophers, but also the most ancient . . . Howbeit some which write of him, hold opinion, that he was Enoch . . . which opinion (although it be not to be utterly reiected) yet it is not suffi cient without proofe to bee beleeved, for Enoch whom they take for Hermes, was before Noes fl oud, in which all the works which were written, if they had at that

117. Franceschini 1931–1932: 395–396.118. Hermes addresses Ammon also in several fragments of lost Hermetica appearing in the

Stobaean Anthology (SA 12–17).119. Gill 1984.

History of the Arabic Hermes

time any use of letters were drowned, but the works of this Hermes of whom we treat, are yet appearing in divers languages . . .120

5.3 The Wisdom of the Arabic Hermes

It is reported that Hermes ascended into heaven, and many wise maxims were related in his name.

—Ibn Kammu-na (thirteenth cent.) [trans. Perlmann 1971: 38]

Al-Mubaššir’s anthology was only one of many such collections of the wise maxims (hikam, sing. hikma) of the philosophers assembled on the basis of earlier works, many of them translations into Arabic from other languages. The genre of the philo-sophical gnomologium, intended to provide the reader with a moral education and a storehouse of wit and wisdom, practical advice for living, and sometimes also a pro-treptic and propaedeutic to more advanced philosophy, was an ancient and popular one. Collections of such maxims circulated widely in Greek, Middle Persian, Aramaic, Sanskrit, and other languages already many centuries before the advent of Islam. Wise sayings also constituted part of the folklore of the pre-Islamic Arabs, such as those attributed to the Arab sage Luqmān.121 In fact, the hikma has remained an important genre of Arabic literature until today. These maxims were from the earliest times a part of oral literature, readily repeated at appropriate occasions, and were used within poetry and song and in different kinds of written literature, but they also formed the special subject of popular and copious anthologies written in Arabic from at least the eighth century onward.122 Like several other genres of classical Arabic literature, this one also was enriched by the inheritance of antiquity through translations.

Hermes is one of the many ancient philosophers to whom wise sayings were attributed in such Arabic collections. In his article on Hermes in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., Martin Plessner wrote that a comparative study of the Arabic max-ims attributed to Hermes was “badly needed.”123 The sense of urgency is no doubt due to the interest and value in locating the precise connections, if any could be found, between the Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Arabic words attributed to Hermes. Franz Rosenthal had already discovered one passage, about a paragraph in length, in the Arabic collection of wise sayings compiled by the philologist Ibn Durayd (d. 933), that was in fact derived, albeit indirectly, from the Corpus Hermeticum.124 If other scattered excerpts of an Arabic translation of the Greek

120. Palfreyman ca 1635: 16r.121. A useful introduction to wisdom literature in Arabic is Gutas 1981, where the meaning of the

term hikma, as well as its sources, genre, and literary function are treated. For Luqmān, see B. Heller and M. A. Stillmann, “Luqmān,” EI 2 5.811a–813b.

122. Books of proverbs (amTāl) are reported to have been compiled already in seventh-century Arabic (Zakeri 2007: 1.310–311 for a list of early amTāl works).

123. Plessner, “Hirmis,” EI 2 3.463b–465a.124. Rosenthal 1958: 54 and 183. The passage is SH 1.

Hermes the Prophet

Corpus could be found in these anthologies, this might give indications of an Arabic translation of the Greek Hermetic dialogues. Therefore the next step was to collect and enumerate all of the extant Arabic hikam attributed to Hermes in an attempt not only to fi nd their origin, but also to ascertain what the Arabic Hermes had to say. After they were thoroughly collated and compared, it became mostly clear which collections depended on which for this material. In the end, however, the results of this research were different from those anticipated. There were no more links to the Greek Corpus Hermeticum. Instead other fi ndings of interest appeared.

This is not the place to present the nearly two hundred maxims of the Arabic Hermes in the original text or in translation. A critical edition of these sayings should involve all the Graeco-Arabic gnomologia together, including the sayings of not just one sage like Hermes, but of all the ancient fi gures, in all of the various col-lections. This is because they repeat sayings attributed to the different fi gures in different versions, drawing from each other in complicated, ramifi ed, intercon-nected series.125 In other words, the problem is that the sayings attributed in some sources to Hermes sometimes show up elsewhere under the names of different Greek philosophers, and it is, for now, impossible to determine the textual history or even the exact wording of each saying without an all-inclusive study of the max-ims not only of Hermes but also those of the other ancient philosophers.126 Some of the examples below will clarify this situation.

These reservations notwithstanding, a detailed discussion of the maxims attrib-uted to Hermes is in order. The Arabic Hermetic maxims are an important part of the history of the Arabic Hermes as he was imagined to be and as his story was told. From a sample of his sayings, even based on the imperfect editions available, the reader can also see what kind of fi gure Hermes, the prophet Idrīs, appeared to be in Arabic wisdom literature. The gnomological collections in which these sayings are found seem to have been more popular than the works on astrology and talismans attributed to Hermes, which required of their readers at least a basic technical knowledge of their subjects. The maxims of Hermes were often accompanied by a version of the biography of Hermes (or the Hermeses) that established his character as a prophet. Thus they more or less represent the stories and ideas that a typical literate medieval scholar of Arabic would have associated with Hermes.

Outside of technical treatises on astrology, alchemy, and the like, the earliest cita-tions of Hermes in Arabic literature in general are mostly not strictly gnomological but doxographical. That is, they do not convey wisdom but rather philosophical doctrine. They appear not in large collections, as do the wise maxims of Hermes, but as individual citations of authoritative views, much like the citations of ancient Hermetica by the Greek church fathers, who used them to further their own

125. Gutas 1975: 436–441.126. The diffi culty of the enterprise is demonstrated by the monumental labor of Zakeri 2007,

vol. 2, which shows parallels for more than two thousand maxims attributed to many different fi gures in various permutations.

History of the Arabic Hermes

arguments. For example, the early Arabic pseudepigraphical correspondence between Aristotle and Alexander called as-Siyāsa al-<āmmīya represents Alexander as citing Hermes in such a way; in one instance, Alexander says, “Hermes the pre-eminent in knowledge spoke well when he said, ‘Man is a microcosm and the celes-tial sphere is the macrocosm.’ ”127 Pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana also cites Hermes for such doctrines.128 Another substantial citation of Hermes in the gnomologium of Ibn Durayd (d. 933) is actually doxographic in character. This is the one that Rosenthal discovered to be derived, albeit indirectly, from the Greek Hermetica:

127. Grignaschi 1967: 75.1–2, 76.10–11; 1975: 141.5–7, 144.1–2.128. Weisser 1980 (index pp. 245–246).129. On the error in this transmitted Arabic version, see Rosenthal 1958 n1.130. Rosenthal 1958: 54 and 183. The translation here is that of Rosenthal, slightly altered.131. SH 3.2–3. For commentary, see CH 3.xiii–xiv.132. Relevant references to Pseudo-Justin’s Cohortatio ad gentiles and its dates can be found in Scott 4.6.133. Scott 3.301.134. Ibidem. Lactantius, Epitome 4.5: Huius ad fi lium scribentis exordium tale est . . .

Hermes said: It is diffi cult to know the truth about the Creator, and impos-sible to describe Him. For it is impossible for a comprehensible body to be described as something incomprehensible,129 nor can what is perfect be com-prehended by what is imperfect. It is diffi cult to combine the eternal with something that is not eternal, for the eternal is everlasting, while the non-eternal is transitory, and that which is transitory is a phantom and shadow. The relationship of things transitory to the immortal deity is like that of weakness to strength, or meanness to nobility.130

In its original Greek form, this text is best known today as it appears in the Anthologyof Stobaeus (fi fth cent.), in which a quantity of excerpts from lost Hermetic dis-courses survives.131 The same Hermetic passage was also particularly popular among Christian theologians. It was cited by Pseudo-Justin (before 302),132 Lactantius (ca 250–ca. 325), and Cyril of Alexandria (ca 375–444). It was probably also known by the Carthaginian bishop Cyprian (ca 200–258) and the Emperor Julian (r. 361–363).133

Lactantius stated that this passage was taken from the beginning of a book of Hermes writing to his son, and Scott plausibly suggested that the popularity of this passage was due to its appearing at the beginning of a collection of discourses from Hermes to his son, Tat.134 It is not surprising to fi nd such a well known passage also in Arabic. It must have been translated either as part of a Greek gnomologium or as

Hermes the Prophet

cited in one of the Christian works just reviewed.135 Rosenthal argued that the pas-sage must have been transmitted into Arabic through a Greek gnomologium now lost.136 In any case, the appearance of the passage in Arabic is an exception that has nothing to do directly with the ancient Greek Hermetica. Moreover, it does not seem to have been repeated in later fl orilegia by other Muslim authors; this particular Hermetic citation is ultimately a rare one in Arabic.

Rosenthal found two more sayings of Hermes in an unpublished Arabic transla-tion of a Greek gnomologium on music attributed to a certain Paulus, who is said to have compiled the statements of the philosophers on music at the Byzantine emperor Heraclius’ (r. 610–641) bidding.137 The work is entitled Kitāb <Unsur al-mu-sīqā wa-māftaraqat <alayhi l-falāsifa min tarkībihī wa-mā>īyatihī (The Element of Music and the Differences of the Philosophers Concerning Its Composition and Essence). The transla-tor is named Ishāq; Rosenthal surmised this to be the famous translator Ishāq ibn Hunayn (d. 910/911). One of these two sayings was subsequently cited, together with its attribution to Hermes, by Ibn ¢urradāDbih (ca 820–ca 911), a companion of the caliph al-Mu<tamid (r. 870–892), in his work Kitāb al-Lahw wa-l-malāhī (On Musical Entertainment and Instruments), establishing a rough terminus ante quem for the translation. Here is an example: “Hermes Triplicate-in-Wisdom, when he sat for drinking with friends, said to the musician: Let fl y the soul from its tethers!”138

Evidently the reference is both to the strings of the instrument as well as to the psy-chic effects of music. Perhaps the Byzantine Paulus adapted his two sayings of Hermes on music from the Greek Corpus Hermeticum 18.1–8, a discussion of musi-cal harmony and the effects of music on the soul;139 however, no direct resemblance between the two texts is readily apparent.

Mostly Hermes is cited in Arabic as an authority in numerous works of astrology, magic, and alchemy. Outside of these genres, and apart from the accounts of the life of Hermes-Idrīs, the scraps of Hermetic material cited in Arabic literature down to the late tenth century are fairly meager. Hermes appears to have remained an author known largely for technical treatises used by specialists in the ancient sciences until the end of the tenth century. This changed with the compilation of the two most important Arabic gnomologia of ancient philosophers, very popular from the elev-enth century onward: the Siwān al-hikma, or The Bookcase of Wisdom, and the compendium of al-Mubaššir ibn Fātik, Muxtār al-hikam. These two works are

135. Cyril’s Contra Julianum, where the citation occurs, was known in Syriac translation, a part of which survives (Baumstark 1922: 161). Fragments of it were also known through chronographic extracts in Arabic (Stern 1972: 439–443).

136. Rosenthal 1958: 156–158.137. Rosenthal 1966.138. Ibn ¢urradāDbih 1961, 22.6–7; Paulus in Manisa Genel Kütüphane MS 1705, 123v–130v (Hermes

on 125r1–2), which I have seen in Franz Rosenthal’s microfi lm collection. Cf. Muntaxab Siwān al-hikma(ed. Dunlop 1276).

139. If true, this would constitute an important testimony for the presence of Hermetica in seventh-century Byzantium.

History of the Arabic Hermes

undoubtedly the most important Arabic collections of the maxims of the Greek philosophers. They remained fundamental sources for the history of philosophy in Arabic tradition. Both share the same format: biographies of the ancient sages are provided, where available, followed by sometimes lengthy lists of their sayings. Both works discuss Hermes.

The Siwān al-hikma, or The Bookcase of Wisdom, composed between 985 and 1030, does not survive in its original form, which must have been long. According to one estimate, it contained about twenty-fi ve hundred sayings attributed to at least one hundred thirty-seven Greek and thirty-three Muslim philosophers.140 It con-sisted of biographies for each philosopher followed by that philosopher’s wise max-ims. The author of the Siwān is unknown, but he was surely someone acquainted with the prominent philosophers and scholars of Baġdād and northern Iran of the late tenth century.141 The original text is not extant, but several abridgements and selections of the original do survive, not to mention supplements extending the treatment to cover more Arabic and Persian philosophers in later times.142 Two of the surviving derivative works are particularly important here, because they relate material on Hermes: (1) the Muxtasar Siwān al-hikma (Abridgment of the Bookcase of Wisdom), made by <Umar ibn Sahlān as-Sāwī (d. 1145), a philosopher who fl our-ished in Nīšāpu-r, and (2) the Muntaxab Siwān al-hikma (Selection from the Bookcase of Wisdom), made by an unknown scholar between 1191 and 1241. Both of these are now published.143 The Muxtasar omits the biographies of the philosophers, but from the Muntaxab, which includes them, we can see that the life of Hermes in the original Siwān was taken from Abu- Ma<šar’s well-known account (as mentioned in section 4.1). Between the two derivative works, it is possible to collect forty-six dif-ferent hikam attributed to Hermes, ranging in length from short sentences to paragraphs.

The Muxtār al-hikam of al-Mubaššir ibn Fātik has already come under discus-sion (in sections 3.4.6 and 5.2). The biography of Hermes contained in it, the origins of which I have supposed above to be connected with a Harrānian, is entirely differ-ent from that of Abu- Ma<šar, and the wise maxims accompanying this biography are also mostly different from those related in the remnants of the Siwān. Depending on how one divides them from one another, there are about one hundred and twenty-fi ve sayings of Hermes in al-Mubaššir’s collection. Only fourteen of them are found also in the Siwān-materials just described, and in several of these instances they are worded there quite differently. Clearly, therefore, al-Mubaššir used at least

140. Kartanegara 1996: 35.141. Modern scholars formerly attributed it to Abu- Sulaymān as-Sigistānī (d. ca 985), the infl uential

Iranian philosopher of Baġdād and teacher of the famous litterateur Abu- @ayyān at-Tawhīdī. However, Wadād al-Qādī (1981: 116–119) argued convincingly that Abu- Sulaymān could not have written it, and she suggested instead as its author Abu- l-Qāsim al-Kātib, a student of al-<Amirī.

142. For a survey of all the texts derived from Siwān al-hikma, see Gutas 1982 and Daiber 1984.143. Two editions of the Muntaxab, by Dunlop 1979 and Badawī 1974, are listed under the title in

the bibliography. On these see Gutas 1982. The Muxtasar was edited in a PhD dissertation: Kartanegara 1996. I have also consulted MS Istanbul Fatih 3222, 35a–36a, for the Muxtasar.

Hermes the Prophet

one major source unknown to the compiler of the Siwān for his treatment of Hermes. In addition, two other related types of texts, besides the individual maxims, are included in the section on Hermes in the Muxtār al-hikam: the short list of wise inscriptions on the rings and belt buckles of Hermes (already translated in the pre-vious section as a part of his biography) and Hermes’ testimony addressed to King Ammon, a coherent set of maxims for kings running a few pages in length (dis-cussed below). We also fi nd the sayings of Tāt or, as his name is given in some manuscripts, S āb, immediately following those of Hermes. Although these refer-ences to Tāt and to Ammon bring immediately to mind the ancient Greek Hermetica, wherein Hermes addressed both Tat and Ammon, there is no evident textual con-nection between this part of al-Mubaššir’s work and the Greek Hermetica. The sources that have appeared are quite different.

Together these two compilations are the sources of the great majority of the known Arabic sayings of Hermes and were drawn upon freely by later authors of gnomologia and similar works, such as Miskawayh (d. 1030),144 al-Ansārī (eleventh cent.),145

aš-Šahrastānī (fl . early twelfth cent.),146 and aš-Šahrazu-rī (fl . late thirteenth cent.).147

Each of these authors (aš-Šahrazu-rī excepted) adds a few sayings of Hermes not known elsewhere; it is diffi cult to say whether these derive from a lost, more complete version of the Siwān, perhaps even the original Siwān itself, or from other sources entirely. A thorough and complete study and translation of all the wise sayings of Hermes in Arabic could form the subject of an entire monograph. Here several repre-sentative examples of Hermetic maxims in Arabic will have to suffi ce instead. Collectively these sayings convey a kind of general morality common to wisdom lit-erature in many countries: be kind and humble, keep your promises, control your passions in word and deed, don’t go to extremes, fi nd trustworthy friends, respect learning, esteem the next life more highly than this one and the spiritual more highly than the bodily, and obey God and the king. Occasionally the sayings are in the form of riddles or even jokes. Here is a brief sample from the Muntaxab Siwān al-hikma:

He said: The oppressed, the cheated, the tortured and the affl icted are fortunate next to the oppressor, the cheat, the torturer and the affl icter. For it is God’s obli-gation to repay the oppressed with relief and the oppressors with affl iction.148

144. Miskawayh, Kitāb al-@ikma al-xālida, ed. Badawī 214.3–216.4. Obviously Miskawayh was too early to use al-Mubaššir’s book.

145. Kitāb Adāb al-falāsifa, ed. Badawī, 133.2–135.15 and 48.6. This work used to be attributed to @unayn ibn Ishāq (d. 873). Mohsen Zakeri 2004 (also 2007: 1.59–73) showed that only a small section of the Adāb as we know it can be ascribed to @unayn. Rather, the Adāb al-falāsifa is really just the work of a certain al-Ansārī, who compiled it from a variety of sources. This moves the date of this collection from the ninth to the eleventh century and the sayings of Hermes it presents now appear to be highly abridged from al-Mubaššir’s collection.

146. aš-Šahrastānī, Kitāb al-Milal wa-n-nihal, 241.7–292.6.147. aš-Šahrazu-rī, Kitāb Nuzhat al-arwāh, 139.3–160.3.148. Muntaxab (Dunlop 1315–1317; Badawī 188.9–11): wa-qāla l-mazlu-mu wa-l-maxdu-<u wa-l-

mu<aDDabu wa-l-mubtalā fī ganbi z -zālimi wa-l-xādi<i wa-l-mu<aDDibi wa-l-mubtalī su<adā>u fa-innahu-

haqqun <alā llāhi an yu<aqqiba l-maz lu-mīna rawhan wa-z -zālimīna balā>an.

History of the Arabic Hermes

He said: Practicing good habits is easier than stopping bad habits.149

He said: Fire is extinguished by water, poison is held off by theriac, patience protects one from sadness, long absence distracts from infatuation, but ran-cor is an evil with no cure.150

These and the rest of the sayings of Hermes from the Siwān al-hikma are typical of ancient wisdom literature in general and are not especially distinctive. By con-trast, al-Mubaššir’s collection has a different and peculiar character, that of com-mandments or even religious laws. According to their heading, they are “A Selection of the Exhortations and Lessons of Hermes, who—peace be upon him—is Idrīs, the prophet, triplicate in prophethood, wisdom, and kingship.”151

Clearly his prophetic character is foremost in the mind of the author of this source. Many of the sayings related in this section have the form of imperative sentences, which are rare in the Hermetic sayings from the Siwān. Here are some examples:

He said: Oh man! When you fear your Lord and guard against the ways lead-ing to evil, you will not fall into it.152

He said: Dress yourselves in wisdom. Follow religion. Make yourselves accus-tomed to a peaceful, dignifi ed bearing. Adorn yourselves with fi ne and beau-tiful manners. Refl ect on your affairs and do not be too hasty, especially in punishing an evil-doer. Fill your faces with shame and stuff your sides with fear of God. Conduct yourselves soundly and straightly.153

Be on your guard against and avoid noxious foods; shy away from base acqui-sitions. For even if they fi ll your cups with money, nevertheless they will empty your hearts of faith.154

149. Muntaxab (Dunlop 1317–1318; Badawī 188.13) = Kartanegara 1996: 170.16 (Istanbul Fatih 3222:36a1–2): wa-qāla <tiyādu l-xayri aysaru min qat<i <ādati š-šarri.

150. Muntaxab (Dunlop 1329–1330; Badawī 189.12–13): wa-qāla n-nāru yutfi>uhā l-mā>u wa-s-sammu yadfa<uhu- t-tiryāqu wa-l-huznu yakuffuhu- s-sabru wa-l-<išqu yuslīhi tawīlu (read tu-l?) l-ġurbati wa-l-hiqdu šarrun lā dawā>a lahu-.

151. al-Mubaššir 11.1–2: muxtār mawā<īz Hirmis wa-ādābihī wa-huwa <alayhi s-salām Idrīs an-nabīal-muTallaT bi-n-nubu-wa wa-l-hikma wa-l-mulk.

152. al-Mubaššir 11.9 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 140.10–11: wa-qāla ayyuhā l-insānu iDā ttaqayta rabbaka wa-haDirta t-turuqa l-mu>addiyata ilā š-šarri lam taqa< fīhi.

153. al-Mubaššir 12.19–23 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 143.2–6: wa-qāla staš<iru- l-hikmata wa-tba<u- d-diyānatawa-<awwidu- anfusakumu l-waqāra wa-s-sakīnata wa-tahallaw bi-l-ādābi l-hasanati l-gamīlati wa-tarawwaw f ī umu-rikum wa-lā ta<galu- wa-lā siyyamā fı - mugāzāti l-musī>i wa-g<alu- l-hayā>a mal>awugūhikum wa-l-xīfata mina llāhi hašwa gunu-bikum wa-tadabbaru- bi-s-sihhati wa-l-istiqāmati.

154. al-Mubaššir 13.7–10 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 144.1–2; cf. Ibn al-Qiftī 6.7: wa-qāla taharrazu- wa-hrubu-

mina l-ma>ākili l-xabīTati wa-htašimu- l-makāsiba d-danīyata fa-innahā wa-in mala>at akyāsakum mina l-māli fa-innahā tufarriġu qulu-bakum mina l-īmāni.

Hermes the Prophet

Obey God, obey your chiefs, submit to your ruler, honor your elders, revere your teachers, and let the love of God and truth master you.155

Not quite all of the sayings of Hermes related by al-Mubaššir are strictly command-ments. Later in the collection the sayings become more typically gnomic in form:

The good man is he whose good is the good of everyone and who considers the good of everyone to be good for himself.156

Death is like a dart already thrown, and your lifespan is as much as its course toward you.157

Intellect without education is like the barren tree. Intellect accompanied by education is like the fruitful tree.158

As seen in the previous section, al-Mubaššir’s biography of Hermes, explaining how he founded a religion, is probably connected somehow with a description of the Harrānians. At the same time, most of the sayings accompanying this biography, with their pious commandments, do not appear elsewhere in Arabic before al-Mubaššir. Therefore it seems likely that the biography and the commandments of Hermes (or at least a large portion of them) in al-Mubaššir are taken from a single, otherwise unattested source. Because the biography seems to be of Harrānian Sābianorigin (section 5.2), most of the sayings related by al-Mubaššir could have the same background, too. It is tempting to suppose that this section of al-Mubaššir’s book is even an excerpt of the reported Kitāb Nawāmīs Hirmis (The Book of the Laws of Hermes), with its Arabic version due to the S ābian court physician Sinān ibn §ābitibn Qurra (d. 943), though one cannot be in any way certain about it.159 The exhor-tation to obey not only God but also “your chiefs” (ru>asā>akum) calls to mind the “chiefs” (with the same word) of the Harrānian Sābians listed in the Fihrist, as well as the chief (ra>īs) of the Harrānians mentioned in the anecdote about §ābit’s arrival in Baġdād.160 One cannot, however, make too much of this point, because the word can refer to any authority, and the offi ce of ra>īs was common throughout towns of southwestern Asia.161 One of Hermes’ exhortations here advises people in how to

155. al-Mubaššir 14.5–7 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 145.4–5; cf. Ibn al-Qiftī 6.7–8: wa-qāla atī<u- llāha wa-atī<u-ru>asā>akum wa-xda<u- li-sultānikum wa-akrimu- kubarā>akum wa-burru- mu>addibīkum wal-taġlib<alaykum mahabbatu llāhi wa-l-haqqi.

156. al-Mubaššir 18.20 = aš-Šahrastānī 244.4–5 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 151.8–9: wa-s-sālihu man xayruhu-

xayrun li-kulli wāhidin wa-man ya<uddu xayra kulli wāhidin li-nafsihī xayran.157. al-Mubaššir 19.4 = al-Ansārī 134.11 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 151.11: al-mawtu ka-sahmin mursalin

wa-<umruka bi-qadri masīrihī nahwaka. Same as Ibn al-Mu<tazz, Kitāb al-Adāb 121.19–20.158. al-Mubaššir 19.23 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 153.1–2: qāla l-<aqlu bi-ġayri adabin ka-š-šagarati l-<āqiri

wa-l-<aqlu ma<a l-adabi ka-š-šagarati l-muTmirati. Same as Ibn al-Mu<tazz, Kitāb al-Adāb 83.1–2.159. See 3.4.5 above.160. Fihrist 390.12–21 (ed. Flügel 326.7–19) gives a brief Ta>rīx ru>asā> as-Sābi>īn. See also chapter 3,

notes 4 and 23, in this volume.161. A. Havemann, C. E. Bosworth, and S. Soucek, “Ra>īs,” EI2, 8.402a–403a.

History of the Arabic Hermes

deal gently and piously with those who argue against them rudely in matters of religion.162 This could very well apply to Harrānian Sābians in their status as mem-bers of a small and marginal religious group of questionable legitimacy surrounded by Muslims in Baġdād. These are no more than suggestions and defi nite proof is lacking for the moment.

Any conclusions about the origins of these sayings of Hermes have to take into account their parallels and antecedents in other languages. As expected, some of the sayings of Hermes in Arabic certainly derive from Greek gnomologia, where they were nevertheless not Hermetic, but attributed to various Greek philoso-phers. One of these in the Muntaxab Siwān al-hikma is a translation of a Greek maxim based on a passage in Plato’s Republic (5.473c–d). Though it is attributed here to Hermes, at-Tawhīdī elsewhere ascribes it to Diogenes.163 The Arabic has the following: “He said: Things go as God the Exalted wishes only when the phi-losopher is king or when the king practices philosophy.”164 The Greek original, under the name of Plato, is found in the Gnomologium Vaticanum: “When he was asked, ‘How may city-states (póleis) best be managed?’ he said, ‘If the philosophers are kings and the kings practice philosophy.’ ”165 Although the Arabic translation is not strictly literal, it is still fairly close to the original Greek text. Aside from the Greek question becoming the Arabic apodosis, and the loss of the sense of the Greek “less vivid future” conditional, the principal changes are two, showing that the translation was made according to the cultural context of its recipients: the substitution of “by God’s will” for the adverbial “best,” and the reference to the management of the Greek pólis, inappropriate to the new context, replaced with the neutral “things go.” In any case, there can be no doubt that this saying of Hermes is ultimately a translation of the Greek. Another example of an ancient Greek source behind a Hermetic maxim in Arabic is in the Muntaxab, where Hermes advocates “voluntary death of the appetites.”166 A version of this maxim is

162. al-Mubaššir 14.20–15.2 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 146.5–8: “He said: If sectarians debate with you about religion with coarseness and ill speech, do not requite them likewise, but gently, with right direction, guidance, and courteous conversation. Have recourse to God and say—all of you—‘O God! Correct your creatures and bring them, according to your divine decree, what will led them to congeniality, peace, faith, and guidance.’ ” qāla iDā gādalakumu l-muxālifu-na lakum fı - d-dīni fi -l-fazāzati wa-su->il-qawli fa-lā tuqābilu-hum bi-miTli Dālika bal bi-r-rifqi wa-d-dalālati wa-l-hidāyati wa-lutfi l-muxātabati wa-<tasimu- bi-llāhi wa-qu-lu- bi-agma<ikumu llāhumma aslih barīyatakum wa-agri <alaykum min qadā>ika wa-qadarika mā yaqu-duhum ilā l-ulfati wa-s-silmi wa-l-īmāni wa-l-hudā.

163. Gutas 1975: 467. The names Hermes and Diogenes can appear similar to one another in Arabic script; perhaps this is the basis for the confusion.

164. Muntaxab (ed. Dunlop 1272–1273): qāla innamā tagrī l-umu-ru bi-mašī>ati llāhi <azza wa-galla iDā kāna l-faylasu-fu malikan awi l-maliku mutafalsifan = Miskawayh 1915: 215.18–19.

165. Gnomologium Vaticanum no. 443 (Plato): ¡ aÃsø| éqxsghe≠| pË| �m �qirsa aØ pækei|

oÆjo¥mso ìfig, eÆ oØ fiikærofioi barike oiem õ oØ barike¥| fiikorofio¥em.166. Muntaxab (ed. Dunlop 1275–1276): “He said: There are two kinds of death: voluntary death

and natural death. Whoever makes his [appetitive] soul die the voluntary death will have a natural death that is for him life.” wa-qāla inna l-mawta mawtāni mawtun irādīyun wa-mawtun tabī<īyun fa-man amāta nafsahu- mawtan irādīyan fa-inna mawtahu- t-tabī<īya lahu- hayātun.

Hermes the Prophet

attributed to Socrates, the speaker in the Phaedo, in another Arabic collection also derived from the Siwān al-hikma.167

It has been easier to locate parallels and antecedents for sayings in al-Mubaššir. One of these, for example, is attributed here to Hermes, but al-Mubaššir gives it another time among the sayings of Plato, whereas the tenth-century philosopher al-<Amirī attributes the same saying to Homer.168 Another seems to be adapted from a Greek saying attributed in the Gnomologium Vaticanum to Anacharsis the Scythian.169 This saying has a rendering closer to the Greek again with al-<Amirī,who attributes the saying this time to Aristotle.170 Another saying of Hermes is found with slight variants attributed to Pythagoras in an Arabic gnomologium and, with greater alterations, is attributed to Zeno by aš-Šahrastānī.171 One more comparison will show a case of clearly Greek origins, though there is some change of the content of the saying in Arabic. Al-Mubaššir includes this saying: “He [Hermes] was asked: Why is it that scholars go to the doors of the rich more than the rich go to the doors of scholars? He answered: For the understanding of the scholars has no need of riches, and the ignorance of the rich has no need of sci-ence.”172 Something similar appears in Greek tradition both under the name of Antisthenes and in the lógoi of Aesop: “The tyrant asked him: Why do the rich not go to the wise, but rather the reverse? He said: Because, whereas the wise know what is fi tting for them for their lives, the rich do not know, but are concerned with money more than with wisdom.”173 These two sayings are defi nitely related—the

167. This is the “Philosophical Quartet,” edited by Gutas 1975: 102–103 (Socrates no. 32), commen-tary 309–311. For other parallels in Arabic literature see Rosenthal 1940: 409. The validity of this saying was debated by the vizier Ibn Sa<dān and Abu- @ayyān at-Tawhīdī in the 980s (summarized by Joel Kraemer 1986: 18 and 205–206).

168. al-Mubaššir 20.12 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 153.10: “He said: The faults of the intelligent man do not let him rejoice in his readily apparent good qualities.” wa-qāla l-<āqilu lā tada<uhu- <uyu-buhu- yafrahu bi-māzahara min mahāsinihī. Cf. Gutas 1975, 130–131 (Plato no. 33), commentary 355.

169. al-Mubaššir 20.20 = al-Ansārī 153.13 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 154.2–3: “What saves you from the envious is that he is unhappy when you are happy.” wa-yašfīka mina l-hāsidi annahu- yaġtammu waqta suru-rika. Cf. Gnomologium Vaticanum no. 19 (Anacharsis): “When asked by someone why the envious people are always distressed, he said, ‘because not only do their own faults eat at them, but also the good things of others distress them.” ¡ aÃsø| éqxsghe≠| Õpæ simo|, di� s¨ oØ fihomeqo≠ �mhqxpoi �e≠

ktpo’msai, ìfig· ≈si oà læmom s� èatsËm aÃsoÀ| jaj� d�jmei, �kk� ja≠ s� sËm påka| �cah� ktpe¥.See also Gutas 1975: 403.

170. Gutas 1975: 172–174 (Aristotle 35), commentary 402–403.171. al-Mubaššir 19.19 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 152.10: “He was asked, What is it that destroys men? He

answered, Anger and envy, but graver than either is worry.” wa-su>ila mā llaDī yahuddu r-ragula fāqālal-ġadabu wa-l-hasadu wa-ablaġu minhumā l-hammu. Cf. Gutas 1975: 72–73 (Pythagoras no. 21), commentary 246.

172. al-Mubaššir 19.20–22 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 152.11–13: wa-su>ila mā bālu l-<ulamā>i ya>tu-na abwābal-aġniyā>i akTara mimmā ya>tī l-aġniyā>u abwāba l-<ulamā>i fa-qāla li-ma<rifati l-<ulamā>i bi-fad lil-ġinā wa-gahli l-aġniyā>i bi-fad li l-<ilmi.

173. Gnomologium Vaticanum no. 6 (Antisthenes): ¡ aÃsø| ptmhamolåmot so’ stq�mmot, s¨ dñpose

oÃv oØ pko rioi pqø| soÀ| rofioÀ| �p¨arim, �kk\ �m�pakim, eµpem· ≈si oØ rofio≠ lçm ∞rarim Ím érsim

aÃso¥| vqe¨a pqø| søm b¨om, oØ d\ oÃj ∞rarim, épe≠ l�kkom vqgl�sxm õ rofi¨a| épeleko’mso. Aesopic lógos: Perry 1952: 252, no. 19.

History of the Arabic Hermes

Arabic is clearly a translation of some form of Greek—but the path of transmis-sion into Arabic remains unclear.

Yet it is not only a Greek background that is relevant to the sayings of Hermes in Arabic. At least one saying of Hermes in al-Mubaššir is a word-for-word translation of a Middle Persian saying that occurs in a Zoroastrian compendium of wisdom literature, Book 6 of the Denkard:

M. Pers.: Ast saxwan ke a-passaxwīh passox ud ast kār ke a-kerdārīh perozīh.Arabic: Rubba kalāmin gawābuhu- s-suku-tu wa-rubba <amalini l-kaffu <anhuafd. alu . . .174

The Arabic can be translated as, “Often talk is best answered by silence. Often actions are better abstained from.”175 (The Arabic goes on to add, “Often avoiding a quarrel is more correct.”) There is an almost perfect correspondence not only between the words of the Arabic and Middle Persian given above, but also in the word order:

Mid. Pers. = Arabic

ast176 = rubbasaxwan = kalāmke . . . passox = gawābuhu-

a-passaxwīh = as-suku-tud = wa-kār = <amalke ākerdarīh = al-kaff <anhuperozīh ≈ afd. al

The Middle Persian words formed with privative prefi xes (a-) are translated here in Arabic with simple antonyms (as opposed to phrases of multiple words), because Arabic has no analogous type of word formation and would require a separate neg-ative word (e.g., ġayr) to render the Middle Persian word precisely. Yet if it were the other way around, that the Middle Persian was translated from the Arabic, then we would expect not to fi nd those Middle Persian words with privative prefi xes but rather more exact equivalents of the positive Arabic words. For example, we would expect a Middle Persian word for “silence” or the equivalent for Arabic as-suku-t,“silence.” Therefore the original form was Middle Persian and the Arabic is its trans-lation. The comparison also shows that the translator made an effort to obtain a word-for-word correspondence with the original. The fi rst part of the saying is

174. al-Mubaššir 21.19–20 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 155.2–3: The Middle Persian is in Shaked 1979: 212–213,E45a.

175. Shaked’s translation of the Middle Persian is, “There are words to which lack of answer is the answer, and there are actions in which inaction is victory.”

176. Middle Persian ast (“is”) has one of the meanings of Arabic rubba in initial position: “Sometimes there is/are . . . ,” “There are some . . . ”

Hermes the Prophet

found already in the great gnomologium of the secretary of the caliph al-Ma>mu-n, <Alī ibn <Ubayda ar-Rayhānī (d. 834), a compiler of wise sayings translated from Middle Persian, and perhaps even a translator of such sayings himself.177 Another instance of a wise maxim derived from Middle Persian reattributed to a Greek sage in Arabic literature has been shown elsewhere.178 The practice of taking sayings of Iranian background and inventing Greek sources for them is probably due to the prestige of the ancient Greeks as authors and the demand for their books among Arabic scholars of the ninth and tenth centuries. In the case of the sayings of Hermes, in which one short passage is found to be a translation from Middle Persian, it seems likely that more Middle Persian antecedents are waiting to be discovered.179

A similar case involves sayings translated from Sanskrit into Arabic and then reattributed to Hermes, both in the Siwān and in al-Mubaššir’s Muxtār. It may come as a surprise at fi rst to fi nd ancient Indian maxims attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, but the context of early Arabic literature, in which translations from several ancient languages abounded, makes it perfectly plausible. Here we are dealing with the political teachings (nītiśāstra) of the ancient and legendary Indian sage Cān·akya, minister of king Candragupta Maurya (fourth century bce). These are extant in countless different Sanskrit collections with complicated histories of their own, not to mention the derivative traditions in Tibetan, Burmese, and other languages. It appears that a collection of the teachings of Cān·akya was translated into Arabic sometime during the late eighth century, when other translations of Sanskrit works were sought by the Barmakid vizier Yahyā ibn ¢ālid ibn Barmak (deposed in 803), whose family came from Tuxāristān, a region in which Sanskrit was studied up to the time of the Arab conquest.180 At least two teachings of Cān·akya from this Arabic version found their way under the name of Hermes in al-Mubaššir’s Muxtār. The precise Sanskrit original, or something very close to it, in the traditional verse form, appears in a published collection of maxims of Cān·akya:

dhanikah śrotriyo rājā nadī vaidyas tu pañcamahpañca yatra na vidyante na tatra divasam vaset

A creditor, a brahmin, a king, a river, and fi fth, a physician:Where these fi ve are not known, he should not dwell there [even] a day.181

A saying of Hermes in the Muxtasar Siwān al-hikma corresponds almost exactly, leaving out the physician but adding another requirement: “[Hermes] said: Do not

177. Zakeri 2007: 1.317–326; parallel saying at 2.384, no. 742.178. van Bladel 2004: 165–168.179. On wisdom literature in Middle Persian, see Shaked, “Andarz. i. Andarz and Andarz Literature

in Pre-Islamic Iran,” EIr, 2.11b–16b. See also Shaked 1979 and 1987a.180. On the social context of the early translations from Sanskrit into Arabic, see van Bladel,

forthcoming.181. Ludwik Sternbach 1963: 108 (no. 107).

History of the Arabic Hermes

make your home in a country in which there is not a resolute authority, a just judge, a functioning market, a fl owing river, and a helping friend.”182 Al-Mubaššir provides this saying of Hermes, truer to the original in its list of requirements, but somewhat expanded and differing in its choice of words from the one in the Muxtasar:“[Hermes] said: He who lives in a place where there is not a victorious ruler, a just judge, a learned physician, a functioning market, and a fl owing river, has lost him-self, his people, his possessions and his children.”183 The match is nearly perfect.

Arabic Sanskrit

victorious ruler = kingjust judge (qād. ī) = brahminlearned physician = physicianfunctioning market = creditorfl owing river = river

The Arabic must be derived from the Sanskrit, which is much older and in meter, and not the reverse. However, the Arabic translation of the Sanskrit original has been changed differently in the two different cases. In the Muxtasar, the change is minor: the physician has been replaced by a helping friend, who is then introduced out of order. In al-Mubaššir, although the requirements of a habitable land are the same as in the Sanskrit, the conse-quences of living in a place not supplied with all the requirements are elaborated.

Another example confi rms the hypothesis that the Arabic translation from Sanskrit was deliberately adapted for Hermes by al-Mubaššir’s source. Although the Arabic translation of Cān·akya’s Sanskrit maxims appears to have received almost no attention after its early translation, a section of it survived to be cited by Abu- Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Walīd at-Turtu-šī (from Tortosa, d. in Cairo in 1126 or 1131) in his famous compendium for rulers Sirāg al-mulu-k (The Lamp of Kings).184 As it hap-pens, this excerpt by at-Turtu-šī contains one of the passages adapted by al-Mubaššir’s source for a saying of Hermes. In all likelihood, the preceding example also derives from another passage of the same translation from Sanskrit. First I give the Hermetic saying as related by al-Mubaššir: “[Hermes] said: When the king cannot conquer his senses and overcome his appetites, how can he restrain his aides? And if he cannot restrain his aides, how can he restrain his subjects and what is distant from his king-dom? The path of kings is to begin with rule over his self so that his rule over others is righteous.”185 The parallel and original passage, as preserved by at-Turtu-šī, is

182. Istanbul Fatih 3222: 36r5–7; Kartanegara 1996: 170.19. wa-qāla lā tatawattan baladan laysa fīhisultānun hāzimun wa-qādin <ādilun wa-su-qun qā>imun wa-nahrun gārin wa-wāddun musā<idun.

183. al-Mubaššir 23.1–2 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 157.2–4: wa-qāla man lam yaskun mawd i<an fīhi sultānunqāhirun wa-qādin <ādilun wa-tabībun <ālimun wa-su-qun qā>imun wa-nahrun gārin fa-qad dayya<anafsahu- wa-ahlahu- wa-mālahu- wa-waladahu-.

184. A. Ben Abdesselem, “al-Turtu-shī,” EI 2, 10.739a–740b.185. al-Mubaššir 26.1–3 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 157.5–8; cf. Ibn al-Qiftī 8.5–6: wa-qāla iDā lam yakunu

l-maliku yaqdiru <alā qahri hawāssihī wa-ġalabati šahawātihī, fa-kayfa yaqdiru <alā dabti a<wānihī

Hermes the Prophet

attributed there specifi cally to Cān·akya. The section is prefaced with the words: “Some of the wise sayings of Šānāq the Indian, from his book which he named Collection of Jewels for the king Ibn Qm>bs the Indian” (min hikam Šānāq al-Hindī min kitābihīllaDī sammāhu Muntahal al-gawāhir li-l-malik Ibn Qm>bs al-Hindī).186 The relevant portion is as follows: “Whoever does not restrain his self, it being just one, does not restrain his senses, they being fi ve. When he does not restrain his senses, though they are few and base, it is diffi cult for him to restrain his aides, they being many and a rude bunch. The common subjects in the districts of the country and the outskirts of the kingdom are yet more distant from restraint. Therefore let the king begin with ruling his self, for there is no enemy more worthy than to begin with conquering his self.”187

Almost a century ago Theodor Zachariae wrote a brilliant article demonstrating that this passage, along with the entirety of this subsection of at-Turtu-šī’s compendium, defi nitely derives from a Sanskrit original undoubtedly attributed to Cān·akya.188

Though the direct antecedent of the Arabic has not been identifi ed, Zachariae was able to adduce many close parallels from various works of Sanskrit literature and, moreover, to discern the true Sanskrit proper names underlying the names of indi-viduals, distorted in the Arabic script, mentioned later in the same passage.

In the excerpt above, clearly the basis of the Hermetic maxim reformulated in al-Mubaššir’s Muxtār, we are dealing with a fundamental concept in ancient Indian ethics: indriyanigraha, literally restraint of the sense faculties. This subject, referring to self-control in the face of desirable or repulsive sensory stimulus, often appears at the beginning of Sanskrit works on rājanīti, or king’s conduct.189 As it says near the beginning of one collection of such maxims of Cān·akya, sa rājā yo jitendriyah, “the king is he whose sense-faculties are controlled.”190 It is remarkable that Hermes Trismegistus is in effect advocating this Indian principle, yet the adaptor has slightly changed the words to naturalize the loan translation, which was evidently a bit strange to him. A literal translation of the Sanskrit expression indriyanigraha in

wa-iDā lam yaqdir <alā a<wānihī fa-kayfa yaqdiru <alā ra<īyatihī wa-mā ba<uda <an mamlakatihī fa-sabīlul-maliki an yabtadi>a bi-sultānihī <alā nafsihī li-yastaqīma lahu- sultānuhu- <alā ġayrihī. (Badawī’s edition of al-Mubaššir omitted several words in a haplography; I have supplied the text from Rosenthal’s handwritten edition.)

186. at-Turtu-šī 192.20–21. Haas 1876: 629 suggested that Sanskrit Brahmana underlies this name. This cannot be so, as recognized by August Müller 1880: 479n. Sanskrit h is rendered with an Arabic h,not q.

187. at-Turtu-šī 192.25–28: wa-man lam yadbut nafsahu- wa-hiya wāhidatun lam yad but hawāssahu-

wa-hiya xamsun wa-iDā lam yadbut hawāssahu- ma<a qillatihā wa-Dillatihā sa<uba <alayhi dabtul-a<wāni ma<a kaTratihim wa-xušu-nati gānibihim fa-kānat <āmmatu r-ra<īyati fī qawāsī (read nawāhī)l-bilādi wa-atrāfi l-mamlakati ab<udu mina d-dabti fal-yabda>i l-maliku bi-sultānihī <alā nafsihī fa-laysa min <adu-win ahaqqu min an yabda>a bi-l-qahri min nafsihī.

188. Zachariae 1914. Ludwik Sternbach 1981: 122b denies that at-Turtu-šī’s passage from Šānāq is Indian in origin; this is a simple assertion without any argument.

189. Zachariae 1914: 189–190, with more parallels in Sanskrit.190. Ludwik Sternbach 1963: 75.2 (no. 5).

History of the Arabic Hermes

Arabic is *d. abt al-hawāss, indeed two of the key words in the Arabic text. Looking at the translation copied by at-Turtu-šī, the same expression is found with a fi nite verb: lam yad. but hawāssahu-: “he does not restrain his senses.” The same verb d. abt is repeated also for the more physical restraint of the king’s aides and subjects. It sounds, however, as unnatural in medieval Arabic as it does in modern English to speak of “restraining the senses” rather than restraining the passions.191 The Arabic verb d. abt similarly has a connotation of physicality, making it a literal rendering of the Sanskrit nigraha, “suppression,” or the like. Yet this was a bit strange-sounding in Arabic—how can senses be held back?—so the adaptor of the text for Hermes therefore changed the verb in the fi rst case to qahr, “conquering”; one could speak of conquering the senses more naturally than restraining them. He expanded it with “and overcoming his appetites,” the word appetites taken from later in the original passage (thus in at-Turtu-šī) and suitable within the discourse of Hellenistic phi-losophy and medicine in Arabic translation. Yet the verb d. abt remains in place in the rest of the Hermetic saying as a trace of its origin. One can see from this example how the unfamiliar Indian expression, translated literally, called for slight adapta-tion in the Arabic. Other adaptations in the saying of Hermes were appropriate rather to context: for example, the point of the Sanskrit original, that there are fi ve senses but only one self, is eliminated in the Hermetic saying. This is because the original passage, as represented by at-Turtu-šī, expands the discussion of the dangers inherent in each of the fi ve senses with fi ve animal metaphors (“It is through the appetites that animals perish,” innamā yahliku l-hayawānu bi-š-šahawāti). The adaptor, who wanted to leave these metaphors out, could also dispense with the reference to the number fi ve. Beyond his purposes to eliminate foreign, less readily understood elements and to preserve its integrity as a short excerpt, the changes may also have been intended to hide somewhat the origins of the passage, some-thing necessary for the Sanskrit wisdom of Cān·akya to become appropriate to Hermes. It is likely that more sayings of Hermes are adapted from the collection of Cān·akya known to at-Turtu-šī as Muntahal al-gawāhir.

Whoever adapted these various sayings for attribution to Hermes did not have recourse to the ancient originals in so many languages. He was using gnomologia already available in Arabic translation. As noted above, the maxims of Hermes related by al-Mubaššir begin largely with a list of commandments and imperatives, but eventually turn to more ordinary gnomic sayings without any section break. Mohsen Zakeri discovered that a substantial portion of this second group of sayings of Hermes are also found in the Kitāb al-Adāb of the <Abbāsid prince and poet Ibn al-Mu<tazz (861–908), a work composed from earlier materials before 887.192 In turn, Ibn al-Mu<tazz’ source for some of these sayings, directly or indirectly, appears to be

191. The expression “restraint of the seneses” and the like will perhaps now be natural in English for those familiar with Indian learning in English translation.

192. Zakeri 2007: 1.39–43.

Hermes the Prophet

the Gawāhir al-kilam of the secretary <Alī ibn <Ubayda ar-Rayhānī (d. 834). Zakeri supposes that the common content of the sayings of Hermes and these two earlier works “insinuates the existence of an independent text of the ‘Maxims of Hermes’ before the time of al-Rayhānī.”193 None of these earlier collections, however, makes any reference to Hermes. In light of the numerous cases in which maxims have clearly been adapted for Hermes from sources in which Hermes was not mentioned, as well as the fabricated and later character of the accompanying account of Hermes’ career, it seems rather that the adaptor of these sayings simply took them from Ibn al-Mu<tazz, or from a source common to the two later than ar-Rayhānī, as he took maxims for Hermes from many sources. There is no reason to suppose an earlier collection of maxims of Hermes as such. In fact, there is no direct evidence for any attempt to produce such a collection prior to the Siwān al-hikma or al-Mubaššir’s source. Clearly the latter had recourse to many different books in compiling the wisdom of the antediluvian prophet, including preexisting Arabic gnomologia.

What can one make of these maxims of Hermes with their various origins in Greek, Middle Persian, Sanskrit, and Arabic? In the history of wisdom literature, it is very common for sayings to be reattributed from one sage to another. This happened regularly already within the Greek manuscript tradition, and for a variety of causes, many of them unintentional. For example, sometimes the heading under which a group of sayings appeared might be lost or overlooked by a copyist, so that originally separate groups of sayings would come to be attrib-uted to a single name. In Arabic, names as dissimilar as Diogenes and Hermes could be mistaken for one another in sloppy handwriting (!� ��" and !#�� respec-tively). In the present case, however, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that someone has selected words of wisdom from various books and deliberately col-lected them to form something new, the wisdom of Hermes. There are too many different sources for these Hermetic sayings to suppose that every case is acci-dental. Our compiler has doubtless also added his own ideas and sayings to the ancient samples.

A conspicuous example of a new text under the name of Hermes, laced with ancient materials taken from other sources, is in Hermes’ Testament to Ammon,related by al-Mubaššir in the midst of the other hikam of Hermes. The Testament to Ammon has never received special attention, yet it has been available to European scholars for a long time, not only through the medieval translations of al-Mubaššir’s Muxtār into Spanish, Latin, and other languages, but also, since 1903, in Lippert’s edition of Ibn al-Qiftī’s History of the Sages (in the abbreviation of az-Zawzanī), a work that draws heavily from al-Mubaššir. This Testament is a remarkable docu-ment, demonstrating an interest in investing Hermes with all the characteristics of a prophetic lawgiver on the model of Muhammad. Here is my translation from al-Mubaššir with section numbers added:

193. Zakeri 2007: 1.42.

History of the Arabic Hermes

1. He gave a testament to Basīlu-xīs,194 who was King Ammon. He said: The fi rst thing with which I charge you is a fear of God the Exalted and a love of obeying Him. 2. Whoever is in charge of the populace must keep three things in mind: the fi rst is that he has absolute power over many people; the second is that those over whom he has absolute power are free, not slaves; the third is that his authority lasts only a short time. 3. Your path is to purify yourself with good intentions, O Ammon,195 and speaking the truth. 4. Take care not to delay battle and holy war (al-harb wa-l-gihād) against those who do not believe in God—His name is most high—and who do not follow my custom and my law (sunnatī wa-šarī<atī), because of your desire that they enter into obedience to God the Exalted. 5. Guard against wishing to take their prop-erty or leaving them in their excess. For property is wanted only for spending it, and God—His name is most high—has no satisfaction in it. 6. Know that the subjects trust in whoever treats them well. You will not improve the king-dom except by the subjects. Whenever the ruler has no subjects, the rule of [merely] himself is what occurs, when he is without them. 7. You must not neglect to attend to their affairs and the affairs of your kingdom, and only then attend to yourself. 8. Give priority to that by which your afterlife will be well and your present life becomes well. 9. Your way, when you encounter war, is to be of resolute view in all of your affairs. 10. Beware rout, for if it befalls an army, it cannot ready itself quickly. 11. Use many spies so that you can have news of your enemies at every moment. 12. Beware of a plot that works against you. 13. When you give an order, inquire about it afterwards without failing, for then you will worry less. 14. When you order that a letter be written for you, take care not to seal it and send it without fi rst reading it yourself, because schemes befall kings. You are not the fi rst king alarmed196 at this matter. 15. You must not keep confi dence in anyone and reveal to him your secrets, but rather your nobles and subjects will keep confi dence in you through your good governance of them. 16. Make sleep for yourself just enough for your body’s rest, and occupy yourself only with serious things, so that all your affairs are serious without jesting. 17. When you have a concern, act. When you are victorious, continue. When you continue, be careful. 18.Beware neglecting the greatest alchemy, governing its people, the inclination of their hearts, and pardoning them: they are the farmers, and alchemy is cultivating the earth with seeds and plants, for the subjects are supported by it, the army197 becomes numerous out of it, houses of business prosper from it, and the dynasty is secure by it. Your way is not to ignore a matter with this

194. The name is totally corrupt in the manuscript, and this reading is far from certain. See discussion below.

195. yā Ammu-n supplied by Rosenthal’s handwritten edition.196. wahila (Rosenthal’s handwritten edition).197. al-gund (Rosenthal’s handwritten edition).

Hermes the Prophet

outcome. 19. Your way is to be generous with the people of rank in treating each one according to the extent of his intellect198 and science. 20. Take the opportunity to be generous to them so that the subjects are not ignorant of the dues of the virtuous. 21. Whoever seeks knowledge, be generous to him and know his due, shower him with benefaction to increase his ardor for it [scil. knowledge], to give his intellect grace, to let his mind be pure and his concern for this world be small. Take benefi t from him, if God wills. 22.Quickly punish the corrupters of the land (al-mufsidīn fī l-ard. ) after their offense is proven to you and their crime is evident. 23. Whoever defames your rule, decapitate him and make it known so that others will beware. 24.Whoever steals, cut off his hand. 25. Who robs on a path, cut off his head and crucify him so that news of it spreads and your roads be safe. 26. Whoever is found with a male like himself, fornicating with him, must be burned in fi re. Whoever is found with a woman, committing adultery with her, strike him with fi fty lashes and stone the woman with a hundred stones after establish-ing sure proof of it. 27. Guard against listening to the words of a slanderer, but when you have proof that he is slandering, quickly punish him and make it known. 28. Give your heart rest from concern with the unattainable. 29.Take care not to ignore those in prison each month, so that none among them is oppressed. Whoever deserves to be released, you set him free after treating him well. And if he deserves punishment, do it quickly. He whose case warrants taking time to clarify his situation, send him back into it [scil.into prison]. 30. Beware of being vain in your opinion. You must take coun-sel with the man of fi ne intellect, advanced in years, because of the experi-ences he has had, and obtain his opinions. For if you see in any of them the right thing to do, [do it]; and if not, then you yourself draw together the right view from all of them. Success is by God.199

The terminology of the passage shows that it was written by someone familiar with the Qur>ān and also the developed regulations of Islamic law, so it cannot have been written before the ninth century. Hermes is like Muhammad in having a sunna—his conduct taken as a model of righteous behavior—and a šarī<a—laws of his religion that he has revealed in his role as prophet.200 Hermes commands gihād,holy war, to increase the population submissive to God’s law, and opposition to “the corrupters in the earth” (al-mufsidīn fī l-ard. ), a frequent expression in the Qur>ān.201 Hermes’ punishments for several crimes are practically identical with the hadd punishments required by Islamic law: adultery punished with a fi xed

198. <aqlihī (Rosenthal’s handwritten edition).199. al-Mubaššir 23.3–25.4 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 157.5–160.3; cf. Ibn al-Qiftī 7.10–8.4.200. The term šarī<a was employed by Jews and Christians, as well as Muslims, by the tenth

century. N. Calder and M. B. Hooker, “Sharī<a,” EI2, 9.321a–326a. Cf. Qur>ān 45:18 for the collocation of ittibā< and šarī<a.

201. For example, Qur>ān 2:205, 5:64, 7:74, 11:85, 26:183.

History of the Arabic Hermes

number of lashes or stoning; highway robbery with crucifi xion; and theft with the cutting off of the hand. The hadd punishment for qaDf, slandering the legitimacy of someone’s parentage, is not present, but si<āya, slander in general, has taken its place.202 In Islamic law, the imām, or rightful leader of the religious community, is technically responsible for enforcing the hadd punishments; Hermes here addresses king Ammon as if he were also that imām. Ammon is therefore implicitly treated as a caliph: imām and king in one.

Who is Ammon, and how would Arabic authors have known about him? As seen in the previous section, the biography of Hermes also related by al-Mubaššir explic-itly makes King Ammon one of Hermes’ students. Ammon is actually found very little in Arabic literature, but it is easy to see how a reference to Ammon as a disciple of Hermes could have been transmitted from Greek into Arabic. The name Ammon (also rendered Amun) referred to an ancient Egyptian god of Thebes, Jmn, whose importance and popularity rose and fell with the changing fortunes of Egyptian dynasties, particularly from the middle of the second millennium bce onward.203

Ammon is later mentioned a number of times in ancient Greek literature as an Egyptian god. In Hellenistic Greek he was best known as the god of the oracle in the western Egyptian oasis of Siwa, made especially famous by Alexander’s visit there. His name occurs in the Alexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes in its Syriac ver-sion; probably it is present in an Arabic version of that work, recently rediscovered in manuscript.204 In his Phaedrus 274c–275b, Plato has Socrates relate an Egyptian story about Theuth (Thoth) instructing Ammon, described as the king of Egypt, in the sciences. This bears some resemblance to the basic idea of Hermes (Thoth) instructing King Ammon. Ammon’s prophet Bitys is mentioned in the De mysteriis Aegyptiorum attributed to Iamblichus. Bitys is said there to have revealed “the Hermetic path.”205 Importantly, the Greek Corpus Hermeticum itself includes several discourses in which Hermes instructed Ammon, but these are for the most part concerned with Providence and Necessity and do not contain advice for a gover-nor.206 Neither is the Greek iatromathematical text addressed from Hermes to Ammon of direct assistance here.207 In any case, the contents of the Hermetica con-nected with Ammon are so different from the Arabic Counsel of Hermes to Ammonthat they cannot be directly related. Rather, it must be merely that the idea of Hermes’ teaching King Ammon was transmitted into Arabic through an unidenti-fi ed intermediate account, and a later author wrote these instructions in awareness of this idea that Ammon, a king, was Hermes’ student.

202. Carra de Vaux, Schacht, and Goichon, “@add,” EI2, 3.20a–22a.203. E. Otto, “Amun,” Lexicon der Ägyptologie, 1.237–248.204. On the Alexander Romance in Arabic, see Doufi kar-Aerts 2003. For the following and more

references to Ammon in Greek literature, see Fowden 1993a: 32n115.205. De mysteriis 8.4 (267).206. SH 12–17.207. Ideler 1841: 387–396.

Hermes the Prophet

At least one section of the Testament of Hermes to King Ammon is directly drawn from an ancient Greek source in translation. Sentence 2 comes from a maxim attrib-uted in many Greek gnomologia to Agathon, a friend of Plato:208 “Agathon said that the ruler must remember three things: fi rst, that he rules men; second, that he gov-erns according to laws; third, that he will not always rule.”209 Again, from the Arabic of the Testament of Hermes to Ammon:

2. Whoever is in charge of the populace must keep three things in mind: the fi rst is that he has absolute power over many people; the second is that those over whom he has absolute power are free, not slaves; the third is that his authority lasts only a short time.210

The Arabic translator was careful to render the nuances of the Greek original. For example, where the Greek sentence plays on three slightly different uses of the verb �qveim, the translator has rendered these with several different words according to each idea.

There are also a few elements reminiscent of pre-Islamic Persian wisdom litera-ture in the Testament. One of these is found in part 18: “Beware neglecting the great-est alchemy, governing its people, the inclination of their hearts, and pardoning them: they are the farmers, and alchemy is cultivating the earth with seeds and plants, for the subjects are supported by it, the army becomes numerous out of it, houses of business prosper from it, and the dynasty is secure by it. Your way is not to ignore a matter with this outcome.” I can only suppose that the clumsy likening of agriculture to alchemy has the purpose of making Hermes, legendary as a teacher of alchemy, into a counselor for kings. The idea, however, that all parts of the king-dom are interrelated, and that the king’s attention to the lowliest laborers is neces-sary for the prosperity of the realm, is found in several similar fi gures recorded elsewhere as attributed to pre-Islamic Iranian kings. Scholars today know such fi g-ures generally as “Circles of Justice.”211 For example, aT-§a<ālibī (wr. before 1021)attributes these words to the Sasanid Ardašīr in his history of Persian kings, written

208. The same line is found in two late antique fl orilegia, Stobaeus 4.5.24 (fi fth century) and the Loci communes of Ps.-Maximus the Confessor, the earliest form of which was compiled around 650(Ihm 2001: 9.61/64, pp. 232–233; on the date, p. xxix). It was repeated, on the basis of these earlier collections, in many medieval Greek fl orilegia, such as the eleventh-century “fl orilegium of Patmos” (Sargologos 1990: 28.45), the twelfth-century fl orilegium of Antonius Melissa (Patrologia Graeca136.1008), the thirteenth-century Gnomologium Parisinum (ed. Leo Sternbach 1894: 149, no. 124; cf. Searby 1999), the Gnomica Basilensia (Kindstrand 1991: 439), and the unedited Florilegium Rossianum(Ihm 2001: xvi and 233).

209. Ihm 2001: 9.61/64, pp. 232–233. c�hxm ìfig søm �qvomsa sqiËm de¥ lelmûrhai· pqËsom lçm ≈si

�mhq›pxm �qvei, de seqom ≈si jas� mælot| �qvei, sq¨som ≈si oÃj �e≠ �qvei.210. Testament of Hermes to Ammon 2 (al-Mubaššir 23.4–7): wa-man tawallā amra n-nāsi fa-qad

yagibu <alayhi an yaku-na Dākiran TalāTata ašyā>a awwaluhā anna yadahu- mutlaqatun <alā qawmin kaTīrin wa-T-Tānī anna llaDīna yaduhu- mutlaqatun <alayhim ahrārun lā <abīdun wa-T-TāliTu anna sultānahu- innamā yaTbutu muddatan yasīratan.

211. For numerous examples of the history of such fi gures see Darling 2002.

History of the Arabic Hermes

a few decades before al-Mubaššir’s Muxtār: “Rulership is only through men. Men are only through wealth. Wealth is only through cultivation. Cultivation is only through work and good government.”212 The similarity to the doctrine of Hermes on the “alchemy of agriculture” is obvious. A more developed parallel with the Hermetic passage appears in the Sirr al-asrār of Pseudo-Aristotle, a work defi nitely drawing on pre-Islamic Iranian literature. In its edited, long recension we fi nd a diagram meant to illustrate the harmonious interrelationship between the dynasty and the state, the subjects and the army, and the natural order of the world. This diagram is supposed to be the summation of the entire book. Arranged on the page in a geometrical design, a circle or an octagon, the aspects of this relationship are connected in an endless cycle.

The world is a garden, whose fence is the dynasty.The dynasty is authority, which lives by law.Law is governance, governed by the king.The king is a shepherd supported by the army.The army is assistants fed by wealth.Wealth is sustenance gathered by the subjects.The subjects are slaves served by justice.Justice is a harmony and it is the life of the world.213

Although the Testament of Hermes to King Ammon does not arrange the vital com-ponents of the state in a cyclical pattern, we see a similar chain of causes and effect. The farmers must be cultivated, because they support all the subjects, the army, houses of work, and fi nally the dynasty. Thus the harmony of the kingdom depends on the king’s care directed toward the humblest subjects. This is also one of the main points of the Circle of Justice. Interestingly, the Sirr al-asrār, in which the Circle of Justice occurs, also includes references to Hermes, as well as at least one passage adapted from another work and attributed spuriously to a Greek sage with an invented name.214

Who, then, composed this Testament of Hermes to Ammon? There are now many clues to the answer all pointing in one and the same direction. Whoever it was, he lived after Islamic law was well established and normative, but before al-Mubaššir: in the late ninth or the tenth century. He was a scholar, for he had extensive

212. Translation from the text as cited by Manzalaoui 1974: 214. lā sultān illā bi-r-rigāl wa-lā rigālillā bi-l-māl wa-lā māl illā bi-l-<imāra wa-lā <imāra illā bi-<amal wa-husn as-siyāsa.

213. Trans. from text in Badawī 1954: 127–128. Cf. the same passage in Ibn ¢aldu-n, Muqaddima(trans. Rosenthal) 1.82n30. In the same work, 1.80–81, another parallel is attributed to the Sasanian emperor ¢usro Anu-širwān himself.

214. For more examples of parallels with and sources of the Sirr al-asrār, see van Bladel 2004:160–168. There I suggested that the Testament of Hermes to Ammon was perhaps translated from Middle Persian; now it is clear that it cannot have been so, although its author had the benefi t of translated literature including material translated from Middle Persian.

Hermes the Prophet

knowledge of wisdom literature in translation from Greek, Middle Persian, and Sanskrit, from which he carefully adapted numerous passages and put them under the name of Hermes. He very much wanted to convince his readers that Hermes was a prophet and the founder of a religion, and to present that founder and that reli-gion after the accepted models of Muhammad and Islam. Yet he wanted it to have the scent of ancient Greek philosophy.

As seen, the Testament of Hermes to King Ammon is transmitted in the midst of the other sayings of diverse origins, and was also adapted by someone for attribu-tion to Hermes, someone with these same goals: surely the same person. The Testament and most of the maxims together accompany a biography of Hermes clearly portraying him again as a prophet with a religion, one described very much as the religion of Harrānian Sābians was described by as-Saraxsī. Both texts, the biography and the accompanying Testament, must have a common origin insofar as they share the same goals and both make Hermes the teacher of a ruler named Ammon. But, interestingly, this biographer makes no reference to the more famous account of Hermes by Abu- Ma<šar, which was written ca 840–860. Given the forego-ing, it is unlikely that he wrote before Abu- Ma<šar; in that case, he must have delib-erately ignored it, or even wanted to replace it. For this author, Hermes was not three, but one, and his name is not a title, as Abu- Ma<šar claimed, but he is indeed defi nitely a prophet. He is explicitly connected with fi gures known from the ancient Greek Hermetica, Tat and King Ammon. The maxims of Tāt are introduced together immediately after those of Hermes, with the statement that Tāt is Sāb, for whom the Sābians are named.215 Seth and Hermes, the fi rst and third Urānīs, taught a religion called hanīfī, or pagan, involving animal sacrifi ces and offerings to God. As already explained, the name Urānī is fi rst known from as-Saraxsī as a teacher of the S ābiansof Harrān.

In chapter 3 the reader has seen good reasons to be skeptical of the existing claims concerning the alleged doctrines of Harrānian origin. Despite such reservations, the evidence here strongly suggests that a certain Harrānian Sābian living among Muslims wrote this text for a general Arabic audience to argue for the legitimacy of his religion: not only the material copied by al-Mubaššir on Hermes, but also the chapters on Seth, Tāt, and Asclepius. The author of these passages endowed Hermes with the characteristics expected of a prophet by Muslims, a prophet whose law is in remarkable harmony with Islamic law. To do so, he plagiarized a number of gnomo-logia, some of which may well already have become obscure by his own time. Although other Arabic Hermetica are of unknown authorship, here we seem to have found at last an example of the “Hermetism” of the Harrānians in Baġdād so much speculated about. Instead of cosmic sympathies and revelatory initiations, we fi nd corporal punishments, holy war, practical advice on managing a kingdom, and, in general, total conformity to the idealized mores of medieval kings. But one may not

215. On Tat as Sāb, see section 3.4.6 in this volume.

History of the Arabic Hermes

assume that this work is the product of “the Harrānians” as a group. It is just one author’s work. There is no reason to suppose that this text represents the views of the entire sect of Harrānian Sābians, in which case it would be misleading in a sense actually to call it “a Harrānian text” as such.216

Is there an alternative to supposing the author was a Harrānian Sābian living in Baġdād? There is no reason to think that a Christian, Jew, or Magian would have taken such pains to present a picture of Hermes and the ancient religion of his fol-lowers that would be appealing to Muslims. Nor is it likely that a Muslim wrote the text. One might try to make the case that this work was composed by an Ismā<īlī; as seen, Hermes was explicitly regarded by some early Ismā<īlī authors as a prophet, and al-Mubaššir was working in Egypt under Ismā<īlī Fātimid rule. But there are no especially Ismā<īlī characteristics in Hermes’ teaching here, which one would expect to fi nd if this were the case. There are no references to esoteric (bātinī) or allegorical exegesis, nor is Hermes a part of the Ismā<īlī account of the succession of the proph-ets that was to become normative. In this account Hermes promised that prophets would come after him, but there is no evident hint of anything special from Ismā<īlīprophetology here. As for the Sābians, those in Harrān itself produced no known authors, but the Harrānian Sābians in Baġdād, specifi cally §ābit and his family, well-known scholars employed by the caliphs, would have a powerful motive to make their religion appear, and even to defi ne their religion, in generically Islamic terms, and to make their prophet into a teacher of kings, as they themselves were advisors to kings. Two suggestions as to the author’s identity come to mind. These are merely informed guesses. The fi rst is Sinān ibn §ābit around the year 933. As told in section 3.5, in the reign of al-Qāhir, Sinān was put in the awkward position of having to resist the caliph’s strongly stated wish that he convert to Islam, and had to face the immediate threat of the slaughter of his community. He might have elabo-rated these teachings of Hermes, including advice on just and moderate kingship, in an attempt to satisfy a violent caliph like al-Qāhir, or indeed any other caliph con-cerned about the legitimacy of the S ābians. Sinān had close dealings with three caliphs and had to live his last years, at least outwardly, with the conversion to Islam imposed upon him. He might have wished to safeguard the legitimacy of the reli-gion of the rest of his family, and it would be in his interest, as a Muslim expected at the mosques for prayer, but whose family nevertheless remained S ābians, to empha-size the harmony between the two religions. Al-Mas<u-dī, writing in 956, had already heard of S āb, for whom the Sābians are named,217 which might suggest that al-Mubaššir’s source was somewhat earlier than that; again, Sinān would fi t the chronology. The second suggestion is based on a reference by the Jewish scholar

216. Grignaschi 1975: 80–81 supposes this text to show that the “Hermétistes de l’époque musul-mane” have adopted gihād as a requirement of a king who follows Hermes. As already shown, there is no reason to posit the existence of such an ill-defi ned group as Muslim Hermetists.

217. al-Mas<u-dī, Tanbīh, 91.3–4.

Hermes the Prophet

Mu-sā ibn Maymu-n to “the book by Ishāq the Sābian and his defense of the Sābianreligious community, and his great book of the laws of the Sābians, the particulars of their religions, their feasts, offerings, and prayers.”218 Although no other reference to these two books is known, it seems plausible from the descriptions that these could be the sources exploited by al-Mubaššir. This Ishāq as-Sābi> could be the son of Ibrāhīm ibn Sinān ibn §ābit. Almost nothing else is known about this individual, save that he was a physician,219 and that he fl ourished in the middle of the tenth century (his father’s dates are 908–946). In any case, one must readily admit that other explanations are possible. It is conceivable that an anonymous author of other Arabic Hermetica in the tenth century wanted to assure his pseudonym a religious legitimacy. Further speculation is not warranted, but it appears likely that al-Mubaššir’s texts on Hermes are part of one Sābian’s apologetic, and that it was composed in the tenth century.

Subtle differences between al-Mubaššir’s description of the religious teaching of Hermes and as-Saraxsī’s earlier description of the Harrānian Sābian doctrines of the hanīfīya (section 3.4.3) support the interpretation of the text as implicit apolo-getic. The latter text, probably based in part on his acquaintance with §ābit ibn Qurra, says that the Sābians sacrifi ced to the planets, and not to the Creator, because the planets, and not God directly, actually administered the world.220 In other words, they were really star worshippers. By contrast, in al-Mubaššir’s description, Hermes teaches a religious calendar regulated by the planetary movements, but with no direct sign of planet worship as such. Hermes’ teaching is presented as emphatically monotheistic. This subtle change in the description of the religion of Hermes can be interpreted as a response to the charge against the S ābians that they were illegitimate because they worshipped the stars, as in the fatwā of al-Istaxrī against the S ābiansunder the caliph al-Qāhir.

5.4 The Synthesis in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries and Beyond

So far this study has documented the development of the representation of Hermes in Arabic literary traditions from about 750 to 1050, and the genesis of each compo-nent of the Arabic myth of Hermes. By the end of this period, Hermes was known to learned men in different ways from the different sources described so far: as a sage or a prophet who had ascended to the celestial spheres and returned, who revealed an ancient religion or the science of the stars, or both, whose technical works on a variety of subjects were in circulation, whose teachings were represented

218. Dalālat al-hā>irīn 3.29 (ed. 588.13–16): wa-kitāb Ishāq as-Sābi>ī [sic ed.] fı - htigāg al-milla as-sābi>a wa-kitābuhu- l-kabīr f ī nawāmīs as-Sābi>a wa-guz>īyāt dīnihim wa-a<yādihim wa-qarābīnihimwa-salawātihim.

219. Chwolsohn 1856: 1.578.220. Fihrist 384.2–4.

History of the Arabic Hermes

in wisdom literature, and whose life appeared, if only in brief, in works of history. In later centuries, Arabic scholars continued to weave all of these strands together.

The later reception of the wise maxims of Hermes was varied. Although they were copied into a number of subsequent collections and obviously were widely read, there are only a few concrete indications of any direct impact that the maxims of Hermes might have had. As already seen, they were at least authoritative and instructive enough to be preserved in many later wisdom anthologies. But there is at least one known instance, in the twelfth century, in which an important author makes use of a hikma of Hermes, along with information about the legend of Hermes, to further a theological argument. In his Kitāb al-Milal wa-n-nihal of 1127/1128, the eastern Iranian heresiographer aš-Šahrastānī wrote a detailed refuta-tion of the S ābians, as he understood them, excluding them from the ranks of the hunafā>—whom he treats as Muslims rather than as pagans—and focusing instead on the role of S ābians as “adherents of the spiritual beings” (ashāb ar-ru-hānīyāt).221

Again, “spiritual beings” is a term related to the talismanic literature, where the powers of the ru-hānīyāt are harnessed for a variety of magical purposes.222 Guy Monnot has tentatively suggested that this anti-S ābian section of aš-Šahrastānī’s book was based on an earlier work containing arguments derived from the early-tenth-century debate between the philosopher Abu- Bakr ar-Rāzī and the Ismā<īlīdā<ī Abu- Hātim ar-Rāzī.223 In any case, the legend of Hermes and his maxims inform aš-Šahrastānī’s argument. Aš-Šahrastānī characterizes the S ābians as doubting that an angel could descend to teach humans, but the response to his imagined Sābianinterlocutor includes the following: “You [Sābians] hold that the great Hermes ascended to the spiritual world (al-<ālam ar-ru-hānī) and entered into their [the angels’] ranks (fa-nxarata fī silkihim). When you conceive of the ascent of humans, why can you not conceive of the descent of angels? When you verify the doffi ng of the garment of humanity,224 why is it impossible that angels don the garment of humanity?” Several pages later he cites the hikam of Hermes, whom he introduces now as “the Great Hermes (Hirmis al-<az īm) . . . who is counted as one of the greater prophets, who is said to be the prophet Idrīs, peace be upon him. He is the one who established the names of the zodiacal signs and planets; he arranged them in their houses; he determined for them exaltations, dejections, apogees, depressions; trine, sextile, and quartile aspects; and oppositions, conjunctions, retrograde and direct motions; he explained the equations and the true positions of the planets.”225

Although aš-Šahrastānī hastens to add that the prognostications made on the basis

221. Studied by Monnot 1986.222. On ru-hānī as a loan word from Aramaic (Syriac), see Stern 1983a: 27–28.223. Monnot 1986: 12–13.224. This is a reference to the Arabic Theology of Aristotle (Theologia 1.21, Badawī 1948: 22.1–4)

where Plotinus’ description of his soul’s leaving his body (Enneads IV.8.1) is adapted in Arabic in these terms. Zimmerman 1986: 138–141 and 228–229n38 compares the Greek, Arabic, and Latin versions.

225. aš-Šahrastānī 240.17–241.1.

Hermes the Prophet

of these conjunctions are not proved defi nitely to be valid, he makes it clear that the prophet Hermes must be accepted as the founder of astrology and astronomy. He then introduces quite a few hikam of Hermes, most of which also occur in the Muntaxab Siwān al-hikma and al-Mubaššir’s Muxtār al-hikam.226 At their head he gives one hikma that lists the priorities of a virtuous and pious man: Hermes says that one must fi rst glorify and thank God according to his understanding (<alāma<rifatihī); then one must support the ruler (as-sultān) and obey the law (an-nāmu-s); then one must look after his friends; fi nally, one must make sure to treat the com-mon people (al-<āmma) well. Aš-Šahrastānī has a special purpose in relating this saying. He wants to point out what he sees as an inconsistency between the words of Hermes and what he understands to be the S ābian position. After this fi rst hikma, he immediately interjects, “See, all you S ābians, how he [Hermes] emphasizes the topic of apostleship to the point that he ties obedience to the Apostle, whom he expresses by “the Law” (an-nāmu-s), with understanding of God (bi-ma<rifati llāh), without mentioning here the glorifi cation of the spiritual beings (ar-ru-hānīyāt) and making offerings to them, even if it is part of the religious obligations.”227

Thus aš-Šahrastānī wants to say that the talismanic doctrines attributed to the Sābians, including their reverence of the planetary spirits, are not as important as prophethood, through which alone comes understanding of God. The implication is that the Sābians should heed later prophets, such as Muhammad, and give up their irrelevant veneration of the spirits. As M. Levy-Rubin points out, this is part of aš-Šahrastānī’s effort to shake the word hanīf free from its associations with the Sābians.228 To do so, aš-Šahrastānī interprets the word nāmu-s in the passage in its religious sense of prophetic law, not in its obviously intended meaning of mundane law. He has employed a maxim of Hermes from the gnomological genre in the dif-ferent context of theological argument. He has taken the maxims of Hermes seri-ously as prophetic teachings.

Aš-Šahrastānī was dealing with traditions about the Sābians that had been devel-oping for hundreds of years by his time and were more historically complicated than his understanding allowed. To achieve his goal of a comprehensive presenta-tion of all the world’s doctrines, he necessarily had to deal with the S ābians. Here the myth of Hermes’ heavenly ascent, his wise maxims, and his character as an ancient prophet are all combined to further his theological argument. By the time that aš-Šahrastānī composed this anti-Sābian chapter, in the early twelfth century, there were no more Harrānian Sābians in existence to be refuted.229 Whoever had taken such pains to turn Hermes into a prophet, complete with a šarī<a and ordinances for punishment, was gone. Muslims like aš-Šahrastānī, himself an Ismā<īlī or at least a

226. Muntaxab ed. Dunlop 1318–1323, ed. Badawī 188.14–189.2.227. aš-Šahrastānī 241.12–15 (trans. Jolivet and Monnot 2.154–155).228. Levy-Rubin 2003: 220–222. See further Lawrence 1976: 67–68.229. See section 3.5 in this volume. The “Sābians of the Marshes,” that is, the Mandaeans, were in

this period a marginal people from the urban point of view and are seldom noticed in Arabic literature.

History of the Arabic Hermes

thinker with strong Ismā<īlī tendencies, could appropriate Hermes for his own sec-tarian purposes to the exclusion of the Sābians who had made him into a prophet, just as the Ismā<īlī Abu- Hātim ar-Rāzī had used Hermes against the philosopher Abu- Bakr ar-Rāzī in the early tenth century.

Aš-Šahrastānī is an early representative of, and a contributor to, the new, favor-able attention toward Hermes among Arabic philosophers that becomes noticeable in Arabic scholarship of the twelfth century. In earlier centuries, Hermes was mostly irrelevant to Arabic philosophers, meaning those called al-falāsifa. Although astrol-ogers, alchemists, and talisman-makers had long relied on Hermetica frequently in their works, most earlier Arabic philosophers, as such, scarcely mentioned Hermes, if at all. This is because Hermes and the Hermetica were extraneous to the philoso-phers’ carefully constructed curriculum, which was based on models inherited from the late antique commentators on Aristotle and Plato. The exceptions have been encountered already; they are few. The Hermetic work that al-Kindī described seems to have left no trace. Hermes appears as an authority in The Book of the Apple, but in the background, and not as a participant in the dialogue. Al-<Amirī merely men-tions the heavenly ascent of Hermes, which he discussed in a chronographic con-text. The Ixwān as-Safā> alone gave Hermes a greater role, not only putting him on a par with other prophets and philosophers, but also citing passages from some of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Talismanic Hermetica.230 Their approach was to have infl u-ence in the long term. Nevertheless, important philosophers like al-Fārābī (d. 950), Yahyā ibn <Adī (d. 974), Ibn Sīnā (d. 1037), and al-Ġazālī (d. 1111) had no use for Hermes in their systems. A major impetus for the increased attention to Hermes in later centuries was the gnomological histories of the ancient sages, the Siwānal-hikma and al-Mubaššir’s Muxtār al-hikam, as for example in aš-Šahrastānī’s treatment just examined. These two works put the prophetic Hermes in the same category as Plato and Aristotle, and integrated Hermes into the history of ancient philosophy, making Hermes one of the fi rst, if not the fi rst, and therefore a founding fi gure for philosophers to take into account.

Even if they were not especially interested in Hermetica, the earlier Arabic philoso-phers had inadvertently given Hermes a foothold in the history of philosophy with one of their most important doctrines. In their ongoing development of Aristotelian psychology and cosmology (particularly Aristotle’s De anima 3.5), the Arabic Aristotelians from al-Fārābī onward upheld the existence of a special immortal and incorporeal entity called the Active Intellect or Agent Intellect (al-<aql al-fa<<āl). This Active Intellect, conceived to be a result of the emanations from the One that gave rise to the celestial spheres, was regarded as the cause of all human understanding, fre-quently described by the visual metaphor of light. The way in which the philosophers arrived at such a view is a complicated story told in detail elsewhere.231 Suffi ce it to say

230. Rasā>il Ixwān as-safā> 4.428–445.231. Davidson 1992. A concise account is provided by D. Black 2005: 317–322.

Hermes the Prophet

here that the doctrine of the Active Intellect was commonly accepted in various permutations after al-Fārābī and became especially widespread through the philo-sophical system of Ibn Sīnā. Some philosophers, such as al-Ġazālī, appear to have conceived of the Active Intellect as an angel;232 some, including al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā, held that a prophet is in fact a person with the perfect disposition to receive the Active Intellect’s effl uescence, and thereby to have a supernormal, indeed prophetic, degree of knowledge.233 It was easy for later philosophical authors to conclude that Hermes—preeminent as an ancient scholar and prophet, and reputed to have con-versed with angels—was one of those who had obtained an especially close connec-tion with this celestial source of knowledge. Thus the myth of Hermes could be fi tted into and explained by the system of falsafa (philosophy), which was intended to take account of everything. For example, the Andalusian philosopher Ibn Bāgga (d. 1139), much infl uenced by the writings of al-Fārābī, held that Hermes and Aristotle were somehow together through their contact with the Active Intellect.234

Apparently on the basis of Ibn Bāgga’s work, the Andalusian Jewish author Yahu-dāha-Levi (d. 1141), in his Arabic dialogue Kitāb ar-Radd wa-d-dalīl, characterized his nameless philosopher as holding that those who obtain union with the angelic Active Intellect, after reaching the rank of “the perfect human” (al-insān al-kāmil), will become one with that angel and join the company of the other philosophers who previously obtained the same intellectual union, including Hermes, Asclepius, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.235

In this background, Hermes gained a special appeal for the twelfth- and thirteenth-century philosophers who blended spiritual exercises and elements of Su-fi sm—including an exaltation of transcendent, direct experience of the truth (Dawq) over the truth obtained through the application of reason—with the Aristotelian philosophy systematized by Ibn Sīnā. The founder of the Išrāqī school of thought, Šihābaddīn Yahyā as-Suhrawardī (d. ca 1190–1192), writing in Arabic and Persian, appears to be the fi rst Arabic philosopher as such to give Hermes a distinc-tive place as one of his most important intellectual forebears.236 As-Suhrawardīinsisted on Hermes as his spiritual ancestor, perhaps because he could criticize the Peripatetics (as he called the followers of Ibn Sīnā) and modify their system all the more persuasively if he claimed a more ancient, authoritative, and divine source than Aristotle. Like the Ixwān as-Safā> two hundred years before, he held that the

232. Davidson 1992: 133–134.233. Davidson 1992: 61–62, 116–123, and 139.234. In Fī ttisāl al-<aql bi-l-insān (On the Conjunction of the Intellect with Humans): Asín Palacios

1942: 21.235. ha-Levi 1977: 5.236. For brief introductions to this philosopher, see Walbridge 2005 and Ziai 1992. Walbridge 2001:

42–50 discusses as-Suhrawardī as a “Hermetic thinker,” albeit without giving evidence that this philosopher ever read any work of Hermes in Arabic or Persian. As Walbridge recognizes, “Hermetic” is an almost uselessly ill-defi ned category.

History of the Arabic Hermes

most accomplished ancient sages ascended psychically to the higher world, and that the fi rst among them was Hermes: “All of [the ancient philosophers] have agreed that whoever has the power to doff his body and to reject his senses ascends to the higher world. They agreed that Hermes ascended in his soul to the upper world—and so did other sky-journeyers. None of the sages lacked the disposition to doff the body and to rise up. Pay no attention to those confused materalists who imitate the philosophers. For the matter is greater than they declare it to be.”237

In his many writings, as-Suhrawardī frequently invokes Hermes, along with Empedocles, Agathodaemon, and Plato,238 as his antecedents, whose doctrines he claims to uphold, but without making many specifi c references to the known works or doctrines of these teachers. For the most part, he demonstrates no real familiar-ity with actual Hermetica. He merely held the conviction, apparently based on his feelings rather than on readings, that his teaching was indeed a continuation or revival of the wisdom of these ancient philosophers. For him, Hermes was “the father of the sages.”239 But he had heard about Hermes somewhere. In two instances, a careful reading of the passages in which as-Suhrawardī makes reference to Hermes reveals some of his sources. Once, he indirectly states that some of his information about Hermes derives from a chronicle of ancient history.240 As already shown, Arabic chronicles were one of the main sources of information about Hermes in Arabic. In the second instance, as-Suhrawardī cites a sentence of Hermes deriving from the opening pages of the Talismanic Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetic text Kitābal-Istamāxīs, in which Hermes encounters and converses with his “perfect nature.” It is unclear whether he had read the passage in the original talismanic work,241

or through an intermediary that cited the passage, such as the magical com-pendium Ġāyat al-hakīm (Picatrix).242 Interestingly, the biographical sources on as-Suhrawardī’s life allege that he was known as a practitioner of magic.243 When

237. as-Suhrawardī, Magmu-<a 1.113.1–6 (Kitāb at-Talwīhāt §76): wa-qadi ttafaqa kulluhum <alā anna man qadara <alā xal<i gasadihī wa-rafdi hawāssihī sa<ida ilā l-<ālami l-a<lā wa-ttafaqu- <alā anna Hirmisa sa<ida bi-nafsihī ilā l-<ālami l-a<lā wa-ġayrahu- min ashābi l-ma<ārigi wa-lā yaku-nu l-insānu mina l-hukamā>i mā lam yahsul lahu- malakatu xal<i l-badani wa-t-taraqqī fa-lā taltafi tu- ilā hā>ulā>il-mutašabbihati bi-l-falāsifati l-muxabbatīna l-māddīyīna fa-inna l-amra a<zama mimmā qālu-.

238. As-Suhrawardī understands the Theology of Aristotle, the Arabic adaptation of Plotinus’ Enneads IV-VI, to have been written by Plato. This includes the passage in which the philosopher doffs his body and undergoes a spiritual ascent (cited in as-Suhrawardī, Magmu-<a 1.112.6–10 = Kitābat-Talwīhāt §86).

239. as-Suhrawardī, Magmu-<a, 111.4–5 (Kitāb at-Talwīhāt §86): wālid al-hukamā> ab al-ābā>.240. as-Suhrawardī, Magmu-<a, 1.502.15 (Kitāb al-Mašāri< wa-l-mutārahāt: mašra< 7, fasl 6, fī sulu-k

al-hukamā> al-muta>allihīn): wa-baqiya smuhu- fī t-tawārīxi. In the same passage, as-Suhrawardī refers to Plato as part of the tabaqa of ancient Greece, and to Kayu-marT (Gayomard) as Gil-šāh (see chapter 4,note 146, in this volume); these terms also suggest a chronographic source relating the serial history of nations. On this passage see Ziai 1992: 328–329.

241. As in British Library Delhi Arabic MS 1946, 4b–5a, esp. 5a2–3.242. Ed. Ritter 1933: 187–188 (maqāla 3, fasl 6). Wherever he had read it, he was clearly paraphrasing

the passage from memory, because he does not reproduce it in its exact words.243. Ziai 1992: 338–339.

Hermes the Prophet

he cites this Hermetic passage, however, it is not for magical purposes, but rather to give a warning against a naïve interpretation of his expression “lord of the spe-cies” (rabb an-naw<), by which he means something like the immaterial and lumi-nous ideal form of a species:

When you hear Empedocles, Agathodaemon, and others alluding to the lords of the species, understand their meaning! Do not suppose that they say that the lord of the species is a body or a bodily thing or that it has a head and two legs. When you fi nd that Hermes says, “A spiritual entity delivered under-standing to me, so I said to it, ‘Who are you?’ and it said, ‘I am your perfect nature,’ ” do not think that it [the spiritual entity] is like us. Everything that is attributed to [the ancient philosophers] on this subject is not correct. The subtleties of their words give evidence of it. But the blunder is due to the translators, to the natures of the languages, and to the attribution to them of [the statements of] those who do not understand their words.244

As-Suhrawardī recognizes that some of the works ascribed to the ancients are, to some degree, spurious.245 He states the evidence for his doubt somewhat vaguely, but it seems that he thought the wording in these texts was not quite right. Nevertheless, he felt himself to be independently capable of understanding them correctly. At the same time, he appears to be unwilling to declare outright that they are forgeries. They are merely “incorrect” due to problems arising from translation and interference with the text by the ignorant. Importantly, in this sole instance in which as-Suhrawardī refers directly to a work of Hermes, he comes close to rejecting it. This is his normal procedure: he claims to represent the most ancient and pure philosophy, but disregards the sources available in his day, evidently because he felt that he knew better. Such a method of appropriation of the ancient teachers is typi-cal of the inspired as-Suhrawardī. He expresses a similar doubt elsewhere about the authenticity of the reported views of Pythagoras.246 The myth of Hermes’ spiritual ascent, which attributed to Hermes a divine philosophy revealed to him from on

244. as-Suhrawardī, Magmu-<a 1.463.17–464.4 (Kitāb al-Mašāri< wa-l-mutārahāt. mašra< 6, fasl 9, fīiTbāt al-<uqu-l allatī hiya arbāb al-anwā<): fa-iDā sami<ta AnbāDuqlīsa wa-AġāTāDīmu-na wa-ġayrahumāyušīru-na ilā ashābi l-anwā<i fa-fhum ġaradahum wa-lā tazunnanna annahum yaqu-lu-na inna sāhiban-naw<i gismun aw gusmānīyun aw lahu- ra>sun wa-riglāni wa-iDā wagadta Hirmisa yaqu-lu inna Dātanru-hānīyatan alqat ilayya l-ma<ārifa fa-qultu lahā man anti fa-qāla (sic ed.) anā tibā<uka t-tāmmatu (sic ed.) fa-lā tahmilhu <alā annahā miTlunā wa-kullu mā nusiba ilayhim fī hāDā l-bābi laysa bi-sahīhinwa-yadullu <alayhi latā>ifu kalimātihim wa-lākinna s-sahwa waqa<a li-n-naqalati wa-li-tabā>i<i l-luġāti wa-li-ntisābi man lā yafhumu kalāmahum ilayhim. On the “lords of the species,” see Rahman 1975: 48.Walbridge 2001: 49 seems to cite the fi rst half of the passage, ending with the words “perfect nature,” as evidence of as-Suhrawardī’s positive views about Hermes. The very next sentence, however, reveals as-Suhrawardī’s reservations about its apparent meaning.

245. Although the context makes it appear that he is talking specifi cally about the “lord of the species,” it is possible that he is rather referring to talismanic works when he mentions the problematic character of the writings of the ancients on “this subject” (hāDā l-bāb).

246. Walbridge 2000: 62–63; Gutas 2003: 305–306.

History of the Arabic Hermes

high, appears to have been much more important for as-Suhrawardī than any spe-cifi c Hermetic work.247 In subsequent centuries, readers of as-Suhrawardī’s books were exposed to this basic concept of Hermes, and Hermes’ reputation thus increased often without any connection to the Hermetica themselves. Of course, the invoca-tion of Hermes does not make as-Suhrawardī or his successors “Hermetic” in any useful sense. What as-Suhrawardī did accomplish, however, was to make Hermes into an ideal to which philosophers could call upon as their antecedent.

It was around this time that someone composed a new Arabic Hermetic work more suitable for philosophers and ascetics than for astrologers and alchemists, the only substantial Arabic Hermetic text that might be called philosophical as opposed to technical. Called the Kitāb fī Zagr an-nafs (also known as Mu<āDalat an-nafs and Mu<ātabat an-nafs), or The Rebuke of the Soul, it is today the best known Arabic work attributed to Hermes. In fact, there are more printed editions of the book today than independent studies of it.248 Although several of the manuscripts attri-bute the work to Plato rather than to Hermes, and one even ascribes it to Agathodaemon, it seems that the author was originally named as Hermes. It fi rst appears in the works of the Persian philosopher Bābā Afd. aladdīn Kāšānī (d. ca 1213), also known as Bābā Afd. al, who declares it a book of Hermes-Idrīs; he also translated the whole text into Persian.249 Because Kāšānī gives the fi rst evidence for the exis-tence of the Zagr an-nafs, and his personal correspondence shows that he was shar-ing the work with others, there is the great possibility that he is in fact its original author and propagator.250

247. Ziai 1992: 344 puts it aptly when he refers to as-Suhrawardī’s “symbolic use made of a host of ancient fi gures” (emphasis added), and his “metahistorical reformulation of commonly known myths and legends of ancient nations.”

248. Fleischer 1840 (partial text, German), Fleischer 1870 (partial text, Arabic ed. and German trans.), Bardenhewer 1873 (Arabic ed. and Latin trans.), Scott 1936 (= Scott 4.277–352, English trans. of Bardenhewer’s Latin), Badawī 1955: 51–116 (Arabic ed.). Another edition of 1903 in Beirut is reported, but I have not seen it (Cheikho 1925: 108: “Un religieux Salvatorien, Philémon Kâteb, l’a édité à Beyrouth, en 1903”). Other studies to mention this work include Affi fi 1951: 853–854 and Genequand 1987–1988 (comparing elements of it with al-Kindī’s Fī n-nafs). The work is registered as KZN in the catalog of Arabic Hermetica under preparation.

249. For his dates, which are uncertain, see Chittick 2001: 3 and J. Rypka, “Bābā Afdal,” EI2,1.838b–839b. The earliest known direct references to the text occur in two Persian epistles of Kāšānī; in one he cites a few sentences from it, as words of Idrīs, in a translation not matching his later, polished rendering (Kāšānī 1952: 2.806–809; trans. Chittick 2001: 143–145); in the other he says that he has sent a copy, perhaps of the Arabic text, to his correspondent, and he encourages him to study it (Kāšānī 1952:2.810–812; trans. Chittick 2001: 157–159).

250. Several observations provide circumstantial evidence for this hypothesis. The contents of the Zagr an-nafs are especially suitable to Kāšānī’s philosophy, while it resembles no other earlier Arabic Hermetic text, besides the Hermetic hikam of the gnomologia. The renown of Hermes had recently been increased by as-Suhrawardī, in Kāšānī’s own lifetime; this situation was perhaps conducive to new Hermetic pseudepigraphy. If the work had been available earlier, one might expect that as-Suhrawardī(d. ca 1191) would have used it or referred to it, given its doctrine. Kāšānī wrote at least one of his philosophical treatises in Arabic and then subsequently translated it into Persian (his Madārigal-kamāl; see Chittick 2001: 20); he could have done the same with the Zagr an-nafs. Finally, one of the earliest manuscripts of Zagr an-nafs, Nuru Osmaniye 4931, in which are copies of the work in both the

Hermes the Prophet

In this Rebuke of the Soul, Hermes addresses the soul with a series of admoni-tions,251 advocating a pure, otherworldly outlook whereby the philosophical con-templation of the world of intelligibles holds the promise of salvation from this baser, material world of bodies. As noted by Bardenhewer, a number of this book’s passages closely resemble teachings of the Ixwān as-Safā> and of the Theology of Aristotle (the Arabic adaptation of Plotinus’ Enneads), suggesting that the work was composed later, in or after the eleventh century.252 This surmise is supported by the observation that a few passages seem also to be liberal adaptations of wise sayings of Hermes collected by the Siwān al-hikma and al-Mubaššir ibn Fātik. Compare the following saying from the Muntaxab of the Siwān with the subsequent passage from The Rebuke of the Soul.

[Hermes] said: He who does not know and does not act dies a single death. He who knows but does not act has double the punishment! He who knows and acts is the one who enters the kingdom of heaven.253

O Soul! These are the three grades; be in the highest and most beautiful of them: The one at the lowest rank is the man who knows without acting. The metaphor for this is the man who has weapons without courage in him. What can a coward do with weapons? The second rank is the man who acts without knowing. He is like the courageous man without weapons. For how can the one who has no weapons meet his enemy? But the courageous man is more a master of weapons than the coward is of courage. Thus the one who acts without knowing is nobler than the one who knows but does not act. The third rank is the man who knows and acts. He is like the man who has courage and weapons. This should be the noble rank.254

The similarity between the two passages is plain to see, but there are also signifi cant differences. The saying in the Muntaxab simply frames the lesson in the context of the reward and punishment due to the person at death. The passage in Zagr an-nafsemphasizes the three ranks, exhorts the soul to seek the highest rank, and adds a

Arabic and the Persian, contains also many other writings of Kāšānī; thus the Arabic and Persian versions of the Zagr an-nafs were circulating inserted within a collection of Kāšānī’s works just half a century after his death. A future study should test this hypothesis by comparing the Hermetic text in Arabic and Persian with the doctrines and language of Kāšānī. In any case, the work cannot have been composed much earlier than this philosopher’s lifetime.

251. The genre of addressing the soul directly in this way (yā nafs!) is an ancient and pre-Islamic one; an early example is found in Burzoy’s autobiography in Kalīla wa-Dimna (ed. Cheikho 1905:30.12–31.13), which is clearly another model of the work of Hermes under discussion. Goldziher 1913collects some further references to works of this type.

252. Bardenhewer 1873: xv–xvi and 121–140. Cf. Scott 4.278–279.253. Muntaxab ed. Dunlop 1285–1287, ed. Badawī 186.2–4.254. My translation from Badawī 1955: 72.14–73.3. Cf. the English translation of Bardenhewer’s Latin

translation of the latter’s 1873 edition in Scott 4.304–305 (Cap. 4, § 13). Scott’s note (4.305n1) adds, “This is a piece of proverbial wisdom that has no connexion with any particular school of philosophy.”

History of the Arabic Hermes

martial metaphor to incite moral courage. The most important difference is in the second part of the message: where the Muntaxab discusses one who knows but does not act, Zagr an-nafs describes one who acts without knowing. There is at least one other clear parallel between the maxims of Hermes (this time from al-Mubaššir) and the statements of Hermes in The Rebuke of the Soul:

[Hermes] was asked about an old man who had a wife. He said: How can one who cannot swim in the sea carry another on his shoulders?255

O Soul! How distracted from fi shing is the man drowning in water! Likewise the dweller in this world: how much he is he distracted from worldly acquisi-tions and pleasures with the salvation of his soul, if he becomes aware of how bad his situation in this world is! O Soul! While you are in the world, it is suffi cient for you to perceive the suffering you get from your instruments,256

their contraries and their fi lth.257 Do not add another person to your instru-ment so that you are like the drowning man, consigned to the sea, who has borne a stone on his shoulder. I do not think that a drowning man will be saved from the sea by himself alone, so how [will he be saved] when he has taken up on his shoulder another one?258

The maxim attributed to Hermes in al-Mubaššir’s collection delivers approximately the same point as the much more elaborate passage in The Rebuke of the Soul. The former emphasizes that an old man does not need a wife, with the implication, in the context of the other sayings of Hermes, that an old man should devote himself to study. The passage in the Zagr an-nafs is rather a stern exhortation to avoid get-ting wrapped up in human relationships. But both use the metaphor of the man on the verge of drowning in the sea. Moreover, both end with the same rhetorical ques-tion: if one cannot swim, how can one carry another on his shoulders? Such paral-lels between the Zagr an-nafs and the hikam of Hermes, in which the former greatly elaborates on the latter, suggest that the Zagr an-nafs was inspired partly by the philosophical gnomologia, and therefore was composed no earlier than the eleventh century. This agrees with Bardenhewer’s hypothesis. The Persian translation by Kāšānī (d. ca 1213), as well as two references to the text that he made in his corre-spondence,259 along with the two earliest dated manuscripts of the text, copied in

255. al-Mubaššir 20.21–22 = aš-Šahrazu-rī 154.4–5.256. The notion that the body is the instrument of the soul is a commonplace of ancient Greek

philosophy and medicine, well known in Arabic. For several late antique examples, see Blumenthal 1990: 321–323. For Kāšānī, instruments referred also to the sense organs, appropriate to the passage; on the importance of these instruments, see Chittick 2001: 84–86 (who translates the term as “tools”).

257. wa-addādihā wa-awsāxihā. The Persian translation has ālāt-i xwad-u addād-i ān (Kāšānī 1952: 353.6).258. Badawī 1955: 79.3–8 (in fasl 6).259. Kāšānī 1952: 1.331–385. It is translated under the title Yanbu-< al-hayāt dar mu<ātabat-u nasīhat-i

nafs. The translation antedates all known manuscripts and is thus a crucial witness to the text; see note 250 above.

Hermes the Prophet

1267 and 1276, assure us that it must have been composed, at the latest, not long after 1200; the absence of any earlier references suggests a late twelfth-century composi-tion at the earliest.260

In subsequent centuries, this Rebuke of the Soul found an especially wide reader-ship. There are at least twenty-four surviving manuscripts of the Arabic Hermetic text, more than for any other with one exception (a work of Hermes on astral omens at the annual heliacal rising of Sirius). Some of the manuscripts were transmitted by Christian monks and clerics as well as Muslims; at least one manuscript of the text is preserved in Karšu-nī (Arabic written in the Syriac script of Christians), and oth-ers bear the distinctive signs of Christian copyists. This demonstrates yet again that the appeal of the ancient sage Hermes in Arabic was not restricted to Muslims. Any Arabic reader seeking affi rmation of and a protreptic toward a philosophically informed otherworldly attitude could fi nd it in the Rebuke of the Soul.

The thirteenth-century successors of as-Suhrawardī maintained the same high opinion of Hermes. Late in the thirteenth century in Iran, his follower ŠamsaddīnMuhammad aš-Šahrazu-rī copied the entirety of al-Mubaššir’s sayings of Hermes, including The Counsel of Hermes to Ammon, into his own history of philosophy.261

Hermes was for the Išrāqīs, as for the early Ismā<īlīs, a founding fi gure as well as a prophet, their ancient predecessor and model in the search for truth. Similarly the Su-fī philosopher Ibn Sab<īn (d. ca 1269–1271) considered Hermes to be his forebear. The fi rst words after the opening xutba of his philosophical summa Kitāb Budd al-<ārif are, “I prayed to great God to disclose the wisdom expressed in symbols (ramazahā) by the Hermeses of the fi rst aeons (Harāmisat ad-duhu-r al-awwalīya).”262

In one of his poems, aš-Šuštarī (d. 1269 in Damietta), an Andalusian disciple of Ibn Sab<īn, whom he met in Bigāya, follows him in putting “all the Hermeses” (al-Harāmiskulluhum)263 at the head of his intellectual forebears in a list including not only Plato and Aristotle, but also as-Suhrawardī, Ibn Masarra, Ibn Sīnā, and Ibn Rušd.264

None of these authors appears to have made much use of the actual works of Hermes in Arabic, the great majority of which are technical treatises on astrology, alchemy, and talismans. Instead, it was the myth of Hermes that appealed to them.

The thirteenth century also saw the composition of new bibliographical histories of science, based on earlier sources, in which Hermes fi gured prominently, such as those of Ibn al-Qiftī and Ibn Abī Usaybi<a, mentioned in chapter 4. These histories

260. See notes 249 and 250 above. The two manuscripts are Gotha 82 and Nuru Osmaniye 4931. The work is also attested fairly early by Ibn Abī Usaybi<a (wr. 1268), who adds a Kitāb Mu<ātabat an-nafsnear to the end of his list of Plato’s (not Hermes’) works (1.54.3), and by the Copt Abu- l-Barakāt Ibn Kabar (d. ca 1323–1335), who mentions it as a work of Hermes in his Misbāh az-zulma fī īdāh al-xidma(Bardenhewer 1873: xiv–xv; Badawī 1955: intro. 40).

261. aš-Šahrazu-rī 139.3–160.3.262. Translation adapted from Sirriyeh 2005, 11.263. aš-Šuštarī 1960: 84.16.264. Massignon 1949: 47–48.

History of the Arabic Hermes

of science made the integration of Hermes into the ranks of the philosophers, physi-cians, and other scholars, begun in the gnomological compendia, irreversible. They blended al-Mubaššir’s Hermes with Abu- Ma<šar’s account of the three Hermeses so that it would be diffi cult to distinguish the original parts. For example, Ibn al-Qiftī’s History of the Sages puts this under the entry for Ammon: “Ammon, King and Sage:This is an epithet of his; his real name was Basīlu-xus. He is one of the four kings who took wisdom from the fi rst Hermes. Hermes had made him governor over one quarter of the earth. This Ammon was counted among the philosophers, although nothing of his words have been translated into Arabic. When King Hermes made him governor, he bequeathed counsels to him, some of which have been excerpted and translated, including that he said . . .”265 The Testament of Hermes to King Ammonimmediately follows (as abbreviated by az-Zawzanī, who is responsible for shorten-ing Ibn al-Qiftī’s work into the form extant today).

The treatment of Hermes here is a reworded version of the account by al-Mubaššir with a few slight but important modifi cations. First, we are told that the Hermes who counseled Ammon was specifi cally the fi rst Hermes. Indeed, Ibn al-Qiftī gives the stories of all three Hermeses, derived from Abu- Ma<šar, elsewhere in his book. Second, Hermes here relates his counsel to Ammon at a particular time: when he made him governor. Ibn al-Qiftī could have inferred this last piece of information from the contents of Hermes’ counsel. Third, Hermes is himself a king, perhaps fol-lowing the tradition of Ibn Nawbaxt, according to whom the ancient Babylonian Hermes became king of Egypt. In this short text we can see the integration of numerous strands, each of separate origin, out of which the medieval Arabic Hermes was fashioned by well-meaning scholars who collected all the data at their disposal about the ancient Hermes and uncritically accepted them in synthesis.

Other offshoots of the gnomological tradition easily made their way into more popular literature, for one does not require technical training to understand the moral teachings of the Siwān al-hikma or al-Mubaššir’s Muxtār al-hikam. This was the case with the European translations of al-Mubaššir, a work known in many lan-guages and excerpted in later works. If a large portion of the Counsel of Hermes to King Ammon, along with other Hermetic sayings derived from al-Mubaššir, could survive in such fl orilegia as Palfreyman’s Treatise of Morall Philosophie, printed in London in the early seventeenth century,266 it should not be surprising to fi nd Hermes passing from the Arabic wisdom literature and histories of science also into Persian song. This corresponds chronologically with the increasing effl orescence of Persian as a vehicle of literature.

265. Ibn al-Qiftī 7.5–10. Ammu-nu l-maliku l-hakīmu. hāDā laqabun lahu- wa-smuhu- l-haqīqīyu bsylwxs wa-huwa ahadu l-mulu-ki l-arba<ati llaDīna axaDu- l-hikmata <an Hirmisa l-awwali wa-kānaHirmisu qad wallāhu rub<a l-ardi wa-kāna Ammu-nu hāDā ma<du-dan fī l-hukamā>i illā annahu- lam yuxrag min kalāmihī šay>un ilā l-<arabīyati wa-lammā wallāhu Hirmisu l-maliku awsāhu bi-wasāyāxurriga ba<duhā wa-turgima minhu annahu- qāla . . .

266. Palfreyman ca 1635: 60a–b.

Hermes the Prophet

The renowned poet Niz āmī (d. 1209) of Ganga, ADarbaygān, adopted Hermes, along with other ancient Greek sages—whom he learned about through al-Mubaššir’s book, among other sources—into his epic romance of Alexander in verse, the Šaraf-nāma and its sequel Iqbāl-nāma.267 In the Iqbāl-nāma, Niz āmīrelates tales of a timeless past in which King Alexander of the Greeks promotes the sciences and summons the philosophers together for disputation and instruc-tion. Hermes appears before Alexander in a learned session as one of seven sages:

Aristotle, who was the kingdom’s vizier, young Apollonius, and old Socrates,Plato, Valens, and Porphyry, whose hands the Holy Spirit had kissed,And seventh of all, Hermes of good counsel, who had resided in the seventh heaven.268

Although it may appear strange to have Hermes side-by-side with philosophers of different periods such as Vettius Valens, Aristotle, and Porphyry, they are present not as fi gures in a historical narrative, but as representatives of ancient Greek wis-dom in an idealized golden age of learning. Apollonius is young not because of any chronographic concern, but only because he appears as such in the autobiographi-cal introduction of the pseudo-Apollonian Sirr al-xalīqa. Socrates is old because that is how he was idealized in the wisdom literature. Moreover, Niz āmī had a liter-ary model for the meetings of the ancient sages in works such as the alchemical Mushaf al-Gamā<a (Turba Philosophorum), written ca 900, in which the ancient philosophers gather for the exchange of views and discuss the nature of the mate-rial world.269

In another episode in Niz āmī’s Iqbāl-nāma, an assembly of Greek philosophers becomes jealous of Hermes’ unparalleled knowledge. “Because of [his] many state-ments on the secrets of the Spirits, the Greeks envied him” (zi bas-i guftan-i rāz-iru-hānīyān bar u- rašk burdand Yu-nāniyān). The seventy other sages agree to spurn him in their learned sessions and ignore him, for which Hermes curses them: they are frozen in place until they die. Alexander heartily approves of this act of Hermes, who had remained intact in the midst of the “fl ood” (tu-fān) of the seventy others. The tale is a lesson to those who do not heed the wise.270

The learned allusions that Niz āmī makes—to Hermes’ ascent to the celestial sphere of Saturn (encountered already in the Epistles of the Ixwān as-Safā>: section 5.1 in this volume), to Hermes’ teachings surviving the Flood (known from Abu-

Ma<šar: section 4.1), and to his expertise in the Spirits (ru-hānīyāt, as in the Talismanic

267. Southgate 1978: 173–179 and 185. P. Chelkowski, “Niz āmī Gandjawī,” EI 2, 8.76b–81a.268. Nizāmī 2001: section 80(19), p. 132 ll. 11–13.269. On which, see Plessner 1954b.270. Nizāmī 2001: section 75(14), pp. 102–105.

History of the Arabic Hermes

Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica)—tell the educated listener that the poet does indeed know what the scholars have to say about Hermes. Such nods to erudition are typical of his poetry. But Niz āmī’s purpose was primarily to entertain and to edify, not to teach an obscure history. The fi gures of Alexander, Hermes, and the rest are for him merely vehicles for conveying allegorical higher truths.

The Persian poet Mahmu-d-i Šabistarī of ADarbaygān used the heavenly ascent of Idrīs, without naming him as Hermes, in his famous Gulšān-i rāz (Rosegarden of the Secrets), composed in 1317: “He becomes pure of reproachable acts, like the prophet Idrīs in the fourth celestial sphere.”271 For Šabistarī, the prophet’s journey to the heavenly sphere of the sun is a metaphor for the purifi cation required for the suc-cessful spiritual journey to perfection that his work describes.

Jāmī (d. 1492), the celebrated and learned poet of Harāt, took Niz āmī’s Iqbāl-nāma for his model in composing his own book of wisdom in Persian verse, the ¢irad-nāma-yi Sikandarī or “Alexandrine Gnomologium.”272 Jāmī adopts the same fi ctive setting, in which all the ancient Greek philosophers relate their maxims and teachings in Alexander’s court. Here again Hermes appears with his own short sec-tion of two pages, the ¢irad-nāma-yi Hirmis, out of the one hundred pages of the entire edited poem. Yet Hermes’ wisdom here, like that of the other sages in the work, is more suitable for the Su-fi sm of Jāmī, who studied under a teacher in the Naqšbandī order. It bears no real resemblance to the Greek Corpus Hermeticum,published in Latin translation not long before, in 1471, in Italy. At just that time Jāmīwas setting off on his pilgrimage to Mecca. Although reportedly invited to the court of Mehmet II the Conqueror at Istanbul, he returned to his home in what is today Afġānistān, where he would write this ¢irad-nāma-yi Sikandarī in about 1485.273

Hermes’ fame thus reached far beyond the special disciplines of astrology and alchemy. Through the compilation of information over successive generations, Hermes gained a reputation in a variety of other genres of writing, including heresiography, wisdom literature, philosophy, works on su-fi sm, history, biogra-phy, philosophy, and even poetry. Knowledge about the ancient Hermes, as with any number of other things, became an important token of learning. Informed by all these traditions, in which a concept of Hermes was blended from separate strands into one fabric, later authors simply accepted that Hermes was an ancient prophet as well as the fi rst philosopher. It was not always necessary even to men-tion that Hermes was the same as the Qur>ānic prophet Idrīs. That was common knowledge. For example, one short Arabic Hermetic manuscript begins “A treatise composed by Hermes—peace be upon him—to his son Tātā.”274 Muslims

271. Whinfi eld 1880: 30.333: zi af<āl-i naku-hīda šud pāk cu Idrīs-i nabī dar cārom-i aflāk.272. Southgate 1978: 179–181.273. Cl. Huart and @ Massé, “Djāmī,” EI 2, 2.421b–422b; Heer 1979: 1–4.274. Istanbul University MS A 6156, 88a12: Risālatun sannafahā Hirmisu <alayhi s-salāmu li-waladihī

Tātā. This alchemical work claims to be a translation from Greek by the Šī<ite imām Ga<far as-Sādiq.

Hermes the Prophet

customarily reserve the benediction “peace be upon him” for prophets. Here the name Hermes, without any other qualifi er, warranted that recognition. The ancient Egyptian god of scribes, Thoth, identifi ed in antiquity with the Olympian Hermes, had been transformed after long centuries, and through many omis-sions and accretions of tradition, into a philosopher-prophet widely recognized by Muslims.

6

Conclusion

The Making of the Arabic Hermes

Much of this book has been concerned with clearing theovergrown fi elds of speculation about the Arabic Hermetica. This has required lengthy analyses and close readings, along with a fair amount of detailed, source-based debunking of historical errors, so much so that the sum of positive gains made may not be readily apparent. In fact, much has been established throughout, and it is now time to summarize these advances in a synthesis: what is clearly and confi dently known about the fi gure of Hermes and his myth in Arabic.

Arabic scholars’ understanding of Hermes had its earliest roots in the previous Sasanian reception of Hermetica in Middle Persian translation. Although the pre-cise character and complete contents of these Middle Persian Hermetica are not entirely known, there is no doubt that they existed and that they were, to a large extent, if not exclusively, astrological. When Iranian astrologers of the caliphal court began to write Arabic works in the second half of the eighth century, they already knew Middle Persian translations of Greek Hermetica concerned with their disci-pline. Ibn Nawbaxt attests to a pre-Islamic Persian tradition alleging that the ancient Egyptian sage Hermes was originally from Babylon, and that he had taught the sci-ences of Iran to the Egyptians. The adoption of Hermes as Babylonian made him part of a complex of narratives well known among scholars in Sasanian Iran designed to promote the acceptance of “foreign” sciences as part of an ancient Iranian heri-tage resuscitated by the early Sasanian emperors themselves.

A second tradition about Hermes as a teacher of astrology comes from Harrān. The polytheists in Byzantine Harrān around 600, like other Hellenized polytheists up until that time, had revered Hermes Trismegistus as one of many ancient phi-losophers, their pagan holy men. The development of their beliefs in the seventh and eighth centuries is unknown, but by the beginning of the ninth century, the status of Hermes among the Harrānians had greatly increased. Theodore Abū Qurra is the fi rst to attest to Hermes as the prophet (nabīy) of the planet-worshipping Harrānian pagans. From this testimony it is clear that Hermes had developed this status at Harrān already before the arrival in Bagdād of T-ābit ibn Qurra

Conclusion

(ca 826–901), and indeed before T-ābit was born. Nevertheless, no Arabic Hermetic text has been shown yet defi nitely to have been handed down from antiquity by the Harrānians. For all we know, Hermes may have been acknowledged as their prophet without recourse to any lively tradition of Hermetic texts at Harrān.

Al-Kindī (d. ca 870) testifi es that some Hermetic dialogues, either those known today as the Corpus Hermeticum or related works now lost, did exist in an Arabic translation by the mid-ninth century. He says that he examined maqālāt, chapters or sections of a book, that Hermes wrote to his son on the subject of theology. He explicitly states that the work is regarded as authoritative among the Harrānians, but he does not say that he received the text from a Harrānian. Four hundred years later, the historian Ibn al-Qiftī had read about Hermes’ “chapters (maqālāt) to his disciple Tātī by way of question and answer between the two.” He said that “they lack organization and continuity because the original was decayed and divided into separate parts.” In Chapter 3 it was assumed that these are the same maqālāt of Hermes that al-Kindī saw. Ibn al-Qiftī was probably just repeating a much earlier report; these Hermetic dialogues were in all likelihood lost in Arabic by his time. A few decades later, however, Ibn al-<Ibrī claimed that it was extant in Syriac. Perhaps one day the Arabic or Syriac text will come to light in an overlooked manuscript. Only then would it be possible to assess fully any debt owed by Arabic philosophers to the Greek Hermetic dialogues. Given what is now known about Arabic philoso-phy, overwhelmingly based as it is on Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Galen, with an infu-sion of Plotinus, these Hermetic chapters appear to have been almost unknown, and we should expect such a debt, if it existed, to be minor. Otherwise they would not have totally evaded the detection of modern scholars.

Around the same time, the middle of the ninth century, the astrologer AbūMa<šar of Balx designed his chronological framework for historical astrology. In this work he drew on both the Iranian and the Harrānian accounts of Hermes. He also had a Christian chronographic source containing information about Hermes. This was derived from the antediluvian history of the Alexandrian monk Annianus. With these collected materials, and one more report about Hermes taken from al-Kindī, his contemporary at Bagdād, Abū Ma<šar composed a legend of three dif-ferent fi gures named Hermes: the fi rst, antediluvian Hermes, prophet of the sci-ences; the second, postdiluvian Hermes who recovered the inscribed teachings of the fi rst; and a third Hermes of later times, an Egyptian sage. Although the book in which Abū Ma<šar created this synthesis is lost, its treatment of Hermes remained decisively infl uential, effectively the standard account of Hermes, cited with consid-erable variations for centuries thereafter. Most later historians in Arabic derived some of their information about Hermes from Abū Ma<šar.

In the tenth century, an unidentifi ed scholar, supposed here to be a HarrānianSābian employed at the court at Bagdād, composed a different and implicitly apolo-getic account of Hermes, elaborating on his role as the prophet of the pagan reli-gion. This author, who knew from some ancient source that Tat, Asclepius, and King

History of the Arabic Hermes

Ammon were disciples of Hermes, nevertheless did not borrow from any known Hermetic texts in composing this work, but had free recourse to existing Arabic gnomologia translated from Greek, Middle Persian, and even Sanskrit. He borrowed and adapted sentences from these diverse ancient sources to produce instructions of Hermes suitable for the learned courtly audience of his own day. Hermes is por-trayed here as the founder of al-milla al-Hanīfīya, roughly “the pagan religious com-munity.” This religion, which, the text claims, was originally followed by all peoples of the world, is characterized as monotheistic, not polytheistic. Hermes has a sunnaand a šarī<a and uses the terms of Islamic law. King Ammon receives from Hermes instructions suitable for a caliph. The wise commands of Hermes teach a generic piety acceptable to all. This work is lost in its original form, but in Egypt, in 1048,al-Mubaššir ibn Fātik excerpted and adapted a large section of it for his gnomology of ancient sages. Although he or an intermediary abbreviated the account of Hermes’ life and religious teaching, he appears to have taken over the maxims of Hermes entire. Al-Mubaššir’s work was subsequently highly successful. Through it, this account of Hermes became a new source of information that later historians blended freely with Abū Ma<šar’s accounts of three Hermeses. Together, the two accounts from Abū Ma<šar and al-Mubaššir remained the bases of information about the fi gure and history of Hermes within Arabic literary tradition and its offshoots until relatively recent times.

Al-Mubaššir’s work was also translated into Spanish and Latin in the thirteenth century, into French around 1400, and into Provençal and English in the fi fteenth century. Through these translations, al-Mubaššir’s account of Hermes and his teach-ings, including Hermes’ Testimony to King Ammon, became known popularly in Europe, albeit in still more abbreviated form. It remains to be shown what role these versions of the text had, if any, in the later Western European reception of the Hermetic dialogues of the Greek Corpus Hermeticum. There is at least one example of its reception in the fl orilegium of William Baldwin (1547), which combined Ficino’s and al-Mubaššir’s accounts of Hermes together.

Along with al-Mubaššir’s Muxtār al-Hikam, the Siwān al-Hikma, originally com-posed around 1000 but known now only from several abridgments and derivatives, also helped to popularize Hermes as a source of wise sayings. The story of Hermes found here is based on Abū Ma<šar’s. Between these two important gnomological histories of philosophy, Hermes was assured an important place in many future Arabic gnomologia of the ancient philosophers and in the Arabic histories of phi-losophy in general, where he is often mentioned as the fi rst scholar, or one of the fi rst, to exist. Later philosophers, and would-be philosophers, could claim Hermes as their pristine forebear and the founder of their way.

In the 840s, al-Gāhiz had already heard a claim that Hermes was Idrīs-Enoch, the prophet who had ascended to the heavens to behold visions and to learn secrets from the angels. Not long afterward, Abū Ma<šar’s account in the Thousands stated defi nitely that Hermes was indeed Idrīs-Enoch, and the identifi cation of the two

Conclusion

was generally accepted from then on. By the tenth century, the identifi cation of Hermes with Enoch had given rise to a myth about the heavenly ascent of Hermes, through which Hermes learned from the angels the secrets of his natural science and astrology. In the fi rst decades of the tenth century, authors working in the Ismā<īlī mission in Qayrawān and in northern Iran both already knew and accepted a form of this story, and used it to further their argument that all human knowledge was built from scientifi c principles obtained originally through revelation, not rea-son. The appearance of this idea in lands far apart make it appear likely that it was propagated through the Ismā<īlī da<wa in the late ninth century, while its headquar-ters were still in Syria. Several decades later, the myth of Hermes’ ascent became better known through its treatment in the Book of the Apple, a widely read adapta-tion of Plato’s Phaedo.

From these and other sources, the Arabic myth of Hermes Triplicate-in-Wisdom reached scholars of various inclinations from Central Asia and India to Andalusia. An overview of those who used and referred to works of Hermes from late antiquity onward shows that they include pagans, Christians, Jews, Magians, Manichaeans, and Muslims. Members of all of these groups had recourse to Hermes as an author-ity. What made this possible was his identifi cation as a sage of primordially ancient times, before the founders of the other religions. The antediluvian authority of the Arabic Hermes was a direct inheritance from the late antique Greek chronographic tradition. Thanks to this estimation of his date, Hermes’ name was not exclusive to any sect. He was a universally respected teacher. Yet Hermes would not have acquired the specifi c character of a prophet if it had not been for the Harrānian Sābians, descendants of the ancient pagans, living in a milieu in which every sect required a prophetic founder. Even after the S ābians had entirely disappeared, Hermes was remembered as the prophet of paganism and the founder of the sciences. This was accepted by Abū Ma<šar, and immediately after him by the Ismā<īlī da<wa, and even-tually by scholars everywhere.

The philosophical dialogues of Hermes Trismegistus, although so infl uential in Europe, were practically unknown in premodern Arabic. Instead, Hermes was famous more strictly as a teacher of astrology, alchemy, and talisman making. This is refl ected in the hundreds of Arabic manuscripts of works on these subjects attrib-uted to Hermes extant today. So far, surviving Greek antecedents have been discov-ered for only two of these Arabic Hermetica: the Kyranis (Arabic Giranīs)1 and the Kitāb Asrār an-nugūm, translated from a Middle Persian translation of a Greek original source shared with Rhetorius.2 Future research may well discover extant Greek antecedents for more of the Arabic Hermetica. By contrast, some of these texts are rather original compositions in Arabic, written with a knowledge of the legends of the Hermes described above, as with the alchemical ar-Risāla al-falakīya

1. Toral-Niehoff 2004.2. Kunitzsch 2001.

History of the Arabic Hermes

al-kubrā (RFK) and The Rebuke of the Soul (KZN). In the richly developed philo-sophical and magical Arabic pseudepigrapha of the ninth and tenth centuries, Hermes might be described as the prince of the “pseudos.” His works are cited by pseudo-Aristotle, pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana,3 and by authors writing under the alchemical pseudonym Gābir ibn Hayyān.4 Characteristic of these Hermetica fi rst composed in Arabic are some of the motifs common also to ancient Hermetic texts, but with their own distinctive character: they claim to have been discovered on books or stelae in underground tunnels or in Egyptian ruins, or to be translations of ancient “hidden books”; they ask their readers to guard the texts from the unwor-thy; they teach techniques for deriving magical powers from the occult properties of terrestrial things and their celestial sympathies. Several of them are decorated with cryptographic scripts, at times in imitation of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Much work is required to explain the interrelationships of all these Hermetic and pseudepigraphi-cal texts. Editions of the texts will be an inevitable prerequisite for any defi nite con-clusions. As editions become available, it should be possible to trace roughly the origins of the texts through citations of them by known authors, as well as their cita-tions of each other, and to establish their chronology more exactly. It may well be that a large part of this Arabic pseudepigraphical literature, and not only the works Hermes, is due to a small number of individuals. If historians are lucky, it will be possible eventually to discover clusters of pseudepigraphical texts of common authorship, and even to identify individual authors. The search for authorship is not as unimportant as many interpreters of literature today think: it matters whether a book was written in the eighth or the tenth or the twelfth century, or in Toledo, Cairo, or Bagdād. Finding the source often means fi nding the context, and context provides a basis for interpretation. Without a context, these texts are more likely to appear as fl oating representatives of a hidden “school of thought,” that vague “Islamic Hermeticism” that we should avoid using as the basis of discussion from now on.

When more of the Arabic texts are available, it will also be possible to tell even more clearly the history of their use and reception in later times. For now it is cer-tain that Arabic Hermetica were used and cited in Arabic tradition continuously at least to the eighteenth century, and manuscripts of Arabic Hermetica continued to be copied down to the end of the nineteenth century. Translations of Arabic Hermetica are found in Latin, Persian, Hebrew, and other languages, in each case illustrating the appeal of the ancient Egyptian sage, and the promise of the teachings he offered, across confessional, ethnic, and regional boundaries. The development of the Arabic Hermetica, along with the Arabic myth of Hermes, came to an end only relatively recently, with European colonization, the adoption of the printing press, and modern systems of education, all of which together have effectively

3. Weisser 1980 (index pp. 245–246).4. Kraus 1942–1943 (index: 1.212).

Conclusion

ended the Arabic manuscript tradition as a whole—though not yet absolutely everywhere.

This study has touched on a large number of Arabic authors who had something to say about Hermes. Well-known examples include al-GāHiz, Abū Ma<šar, the two Rāzīs Abū Hātim and Abū Bakr, Agapius of Manbig, Sinān ibn T

ˉābit, al-<Āmirī, Ibn

Gulgul, the Ixwān aš-Safā>, Miskawayh, al-Mubaššir ibn Fātik, Ibn Bāgga, Yahūdāha-Levi, as-Suhrawardī, aš-Šahrastānī, Mūsā ibn Maymūn, Ibn al-Qiftī, Ibn AbīUsaybi<a, Ibn al-<Ibrī, Ibn Sab<īn, aš-Šuštarī, and aš-Šahrazūrī, not to mention poets writing in Persian such as Nizāmī and Jāmī. Even while excluding the very numer-ous astrologers and alchemists who continued to cite Hermes as an authority in works within their special disciplines (as practically all of them did), and the count-less anonymous manuscript copyists who preserved the Arabic Hermetica, often in countries where Arabic was not the prevailing spoken language, this roster suffi ces to prove how widespread and infl uential the myth of Hermes became from the ninth to the fi fteenth century over thousands of miles of territory. Many of these authors—who made their living as physicians, secretaries, missionaries, merchants, and still other ways—would have disagreed, if they could have met (as some actually did), on fundamental philosophical and religious issues. What they all have in com-mon is some kind of interest in ancient Greek learning. That interest manifested in different ways in each of them: some of them are historians of philosophy, some of them philosophers, some of them Sūfīs distinguished by a wish to participate in the transmission of an idealized ancient wisdom. In a few of them, all of these interests overlapped. What these authors were not is “Hermetists.” Their references to Hermes demonstrate not membership in a Hermetic school or sect, but merely their shared participation in and knowledge of Arabic scholarship concerned with the recovery and preservation of ancient science and wisdom. In this Eastern classical tradition, rooted in late antiquity, Hermes Triplicate-in-Wisdom came to play an important role as a fi gure of legend, an ideal of wisdom to be emulated, the founder of learn-ing, a master of the spirits, the prophet of science who had touched the stars and heard the words of angels, the fi rst sage.

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Note: Bipartite surnames are alphabetized by their fi rst part, regardless of traditional prac-tice. Hence “van Bladel” is under V, “de Blois” under D, and so forth. The Arabic defi nite article is disregarded; for example, fi nd al-Mubaššir under M.

<Abdalgabbār ibn Ahmad al-Asadābādī. Kitāb al-Muġnī fī abwāb at-tawhīd wa-l-<adl, 20 vols., Cairo, Wizārat aT-§aqāfa wa-l-Iršād al-Qawmī, 196–.

Abū l-Fidā>, 1831 = Abulfedae Historia Anteislamica, Arabice, ed. H. Fleischer, Leipzig, Vogel.Abū Ma<šar. The Great Introduction to the Science of Astrology / Al-Mudkhal al-kabīr ilā <ilm

ahkām al-nujūm, facsimile of MS 1508 Carullah collection, Süleymaniye Library, Istanbul, published by the Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science, Frankfurt am Main, 1985.

Acampora-Michel, Elsbeth, 2001. Liber de Pomo / Buch vom Apfel: eingeleitet, übersetzt und kommentiert, Frankfurt am Main, Vittorio Klostermann.

Adamson, Peter, 2000. “Two Early Arabic Doxographies on the Soul: al-Kindī and the ‘Theology of Aristotle,’ ” Modern Schoolman 77, 105–125.

—— , 2002. The Arabic Plotinus, London, Duckworth.Adang, Camilla, 1996. Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible, Leiden, E. J. Brill.Adler, William, 1989. Time Immemorial: Archaic History and Its Sources in Christian

Chronography from Julius Africanus to George Syncellus, Washington, D.C., Dumbarton Oaks.

—— , 1992. “Eusebius’ Chronicle and Its Legacy,” in Harold W. Attridge and Goei Hata, eds., Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism, Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 467–491.

Affi fi , A. E., 1951. “The Infl uence of Hermetic Literature on Moslem Thought,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 13, 840–855.

Afnan, Soheil M., 1964. Philosophical Terminology in Arabic and Persian, Leiden, E. J. Brill.Agapius (al-Mahbūb) of Manbig = Kitab al-‘Unvan: Histoire Universelle écrite par Agapius

(Mahboub) de Menbidj, in Alexandre Vasiliev, ed. and trans., Patrologia Orientalis 5.4, 7.4,8.3, and 11.1, 1910–1915.

Axbār az-zamān, 1983. [author named as al-Mas<ūdī] ed. as-Sāwī, fi fth printing, Beirut, Dāral-Andalus.

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Abammon, 97<Abbāsid dynasty, 15–16, 168–169, 174abjad, 26n18Abraham, 137, 191Abū l-<Abbās Muhammad, 169, 171n26Abū¢ālid Šaddād ibn al-Yazīd, 56–57Abū Hātim ar-Rāzī, 169–170Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm ibn Hilāl as-Sābi>,

96n144, 106, 107–108Abū l-Husayn Ah mad al-Mah āmilī, 109Abū Sahl ibn Nawbaxt, See Ibn NawbaxtAbū l-Qāsim al-Kātib, 200n141Abū Ma<šar

account combined with that of al-Mubaššir ibn Fātik, 185

on BūDāsaf (putatively), 116–117as chronographer, 147–154, 157, 183, 235and Harrānians, 81–83, 92, 96n144and Ibn Nawbaxt’s writings, 131–132in Ibn Nubāta’s writings, 157, 158, 159–160Idrīs-Enoch identifi cation, 168, 236–237in al-Mas<ūdī’s work, 96n139See also three Hermes legends, Abū

Ma<šar’s roleAbū Sulaymān as-Sigistānī, 200n141Abū Yūsuf Īšu< al-Qatī<ī, 66n8Abydenus, 138Achaemenids, 49, 52–53, 60–61Active Intellect, 222–223Acts of Thomas, 58Adam, 125, 129, 144, 148, 150, 158, 165, 167,

185, 194Adler, William, 134n59, 135, 145, 155Adversus nationes (Arnobius), 44n96

Aesop, 205Affi fi , A. E., 19n53Afnan, Soheil, 34n47Against the Gnostics (Plotinus), 43–44Agapius, 98n146, 172, 174–175Agapius of Manbig, 37n73Agathodaemon, 89, 92, 96, 134, 185, 186, 188,

224, 225Agathon, 215agriculture, in kingship maxims, 215–216

See also Nabataean Agriculture (Ibn Wahšīya)

Ahmad ibn <Abdalwahhāb, 168n15, 171n26Axmīm temple, 126alchemy texts, 48, 49–57, 127, 181–182,

237–2381 Alcibiades (Plato), 74–75Alexander and Aristotle, 198Alexander, King of the Greeks, 231Alexander of Libya, 43Alexander of Lycopolis, 44n96Alexander Polyhistor, 138Alexander Romance (Pseudo-Callisthenes),

214Alexander Severus, 59–60, 61Alexander the Great, 31–32, 33–34, 35, 36,

58–62, 153Allogenes, 43, 46Almagest (Ptolemy), 26n19Aloros, 145, 155Alphabetical Treatise on Sympathies and

Antipathies of Stones (Bolus), 52Amelius, 44al-<Āmirī, 144, 180, 205, 222

Index

Index

Ammon, 47, 95, 132, 186, 195, 201, 211–217, 230Ammonius, 44Anacharsis, 205al-Andarzġar, Zādānfarrūx, 29Andronicus, 140–141, 142, 146angels, 25, 145, 146, 153n37, 159, 165–167,

170, 172, 176–177, 179, 183, 220, 223,236–237, 239

Annianus, 138–147, 154–155Anonymous Chronicle, 141, 174al-Ansārī, 190n105, 201al-Antākī, Yahyā, 76n55antipagan arguments, 11, 12, 83–84Antisthenes, 205Apollodorus, 138Apollonius, 100, 158–159, 231Apotelesmatika, 173Arabic scholarship, emergence, 14–17Aramaic writing, 25–26, 49n118Aratus, 96Ardašīr, 23, 32, 33, 58, 59–61, 215–216Ardā Wirāz Nāmag, 34Argos, 151–152, 153Aristotle

Active Intellect doctrine, 222–223Alexander conversation, 198in al-Gāhiz, 168n15in Ismā<īlī teachings, 180in al-Kindī’s description of S ābians, 88in Kitāb at-Tuffāha (Book of the Apple),

176–177, 179, 184in Nizāmī’s poetry, 231Ostanes conversation, 54and wise maxims of Hermes, 205

Armenian Hermeticum, 9–10, 13>rmys spelling, 26n19Arnobius, 12, 44n96Artabanus, 59Artemis, 183Asclepius, 127, 133, 142, 158, 161, 185, 186Asclepius (The Perfect Discourse), 9, 12, 133astrology

in Abū Ma<šar’s works, 82–83, 122–123,127n30, 142–143, 149, 152

in Arabic scholarship emergence, 15in De mysteriis Aegyptiorum, 98n148Enoch association, 173, 175and heavenly ascent myth, 172–173, 180India, 115–117Ismā<īlī teachings, 170, 181

Middle Persian writings, 24, 26–30, 33, 35,37–38

in al-Mubaššir’s biography of Hermes, 194

al-Mubaššir’s writings, 186–187in Sā<id al-Andalusī’s writing, 129–130in aš-Šahrastānī’s writing, 220–221in Šāpūr’s time, 42Sasanian texts, 27–30Theodore Abū Qurra, 85–86

astronomy, 35n61, 165–166, 220–221Athenagoras, 11Augustus, era of, 150–151Avesta, 33, 35, 36, 41n87, 149Āwus, 186

Bābā, 84, 92Babylonian Hermes

in Abū Ma<šar’s chronology, 126Ibn Nawbaxt’s writings, 131–132, 234Ibn Nubāta’s writings, 158–159Middle Persian writings, 28–29, 32, 37Sā<id al-Andalusī’s writing, 129–130

Baġdād, 15–16, 65, 69Bagnall, Roger, 11n30Bailey, Harold, 33n44Baldwin, William, 195–196, 236Balīnūs (Apollonius), 100, 158–159Bar Bahlūl, 73n43, 102n167Bar Daysān, 175Bardenhewer, Otto, 227Barhebraeus, See Ibn al-<IbrīBartholomae, Christian, 33n44Beck, Roger, 50n126Berossus, 126n25, 136, 137, 138, 146Berthelot, Marcellin, 48, 54Bible, 136, 164–165, 167, 185n94, 191Bidez, Joseph, 51al-Bīrūnī, 29, 82, 92, 102n167, 117, 142–143,

145–146, 154, 179Bitys, 214Bivar, A. D. H., 52n142Blochet, E., 24n7Bodhisattva (Būd

¯āsaf), 35n61, 116–118

Bolus of Mendes, 48n113, 51–53Bookcase of Wisdom (Siwān al-hikma),

199–200Book of Abū HuDayfa, 167The Book of Apple (Kitāb at-Tuffāha),

175–180, 184, 222, 237

Index

Book of Conjunctions (Abū Ma<šar), 142–144Book of Enoch, 165–166The Book of Hermes on Revolutions of the

Years of Nativities (The Rod of Gold), 28Book of Sothis (Manetho), 134, 135, 137,

138, 154Book of Stones, 24n7The Book of the Generations of Adam, 165Book of the Thousands, See Abū Ma<šarBook of Thoth, 8Book of Watchers, 145bowls, incantation, 25–26Boylan, P., 8n17Brock, Sebastian, 83–84BūDāsaf (Bodhisattva), 35n61, 116–118Bundahišn, 33Burnett, Charles, 22n61, 24, 103, 160, 173n30

caliph succession, 14–15Cambyses, 53Cānakya, 207–210Caracalla, Antoninus, 59Carmen Astrologicum (Dorotheus), 28–29, 39Casaubon, Isaac, 6Caxton (English translator), 195Chapters of Hermes on the Doctrine of God’s

Unity, 89La Chimie au moyen âge (Berthelot), 48, 54Christianity, Rome’s edict, 64Christian writings

and Abū Ma<šar’s work, 126n25, 127–128,151–152

chronicles generally, 135–138Enoch appearances, 164–165, 172–173and Iranian chronology, 149–150, 155–156Prophecies of the Pagan Philosophers, 11, 12,

83–84and three Hermes legend, 135–147See also Latin texts; specifi c authors, e.g.,

Eusebius; Jacob of Edessa; PorphyryChronicle (Ibn al-<Ibrī), 93Chwolsohn, Daniel, 66n8, 67, 70n25, 89,

93–94, 105n180, 188n102Cicero, 133n57Circle of Justice, 215–216Cohortation ad gentiles (Pseudo-Justin), 11Columella, 51Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus

(Porphyry), 99Conring, Hermann, 6

consonantary, 26n18Copenhaver, Brian, 21n59Coptic texts, 9, 12, 41n87, 46, 90n114, 133Corbin, H., 70n28Corpus Hermeticum

community of origin (putative), 18heavenly ascent myth, 172and Ibn al-Qiftī’s writing, 90and al-Kindī’s writings, 88–90and al-Mubaššir’s writings, 195research potential, 8–9Sābian hypothesis, 80–81and Syriac Prophecies, 84–85and wise maxims of Hermes, 196–197, 214See also Greek Hermetica, Roman

EgyptianThe Counsel of Hermes to Ammon, 214, 229,

230Cumont, Franz, 51Cyprian, 47Cyril of Alexandria, 12, 84, 198, 199n135

Dahāk, 31Darius, 53Dayr Kādī, 102de Blois, François, 67n14, 190–191The Defi nitions of Hermes, 9–10Democritus, 48n113, 50–52Demostratus, 43Dendara temple, 181–182Dēnkard, 33, 36, 38, 62, 206Dēn-vijirgard, 35Description of the Doctrines of the S ābians

(as-Saraxsī), 77, 87Dignas, Beate, 61ad-Dimašqī, 111n205Dio, Cassius, 59, 60Diocletian, era of, 150–151Diogenes, 49n118, 177, 204Dionysius, 141Dioscorus, 50Dorotheus, 28–29, 38, 39, 131dream, Ostanes’, 54–56Drijvers, H. J. W., 174n35+ū l-Qarnayn, interpretations, 153Durkin-Meisterernst, Desmond, 38n77Duval, R., 48

Ecclesiastical History (Socrates of Constantinople), 98n146

Index

Edessa, 109, 186, 189Egypt

Fātimid dynasty, 169Hermetic community, 11–12Hymn of the Pearl, 58Ostanes’ books, 48–57Plotinus’s life, 44Porphyry’s Letter, 97–98See also Greek Hermetica, Roman Egypt

Egyptian Hermesin Abū Ma<šar’s chronology, 125–126, 127,

128–129in ar-Risāla al-falakīya al-kubrā, 182–183in Greek Hermetica, 4–5in Ibn Nubāta’s writing, 31–32, 158in Middle Persian writings, 28–29, 31, 37al-Mubaššir’s biography, 185–186, 188–189Plato’s writings, 132–133in Sā<id al-Andalusī’s writing, 129–130in Syncellus’ work, 134–135

The Egyptian Hermes (Fowden), 18Elephantine, 49n118, 52n142Elias of Nisibis, 140–141, 151Emerald Tablet, 170–171, 181Empedocles, 224, 225Enoch

in Abū Ma<šar’s work, 125, 155–157Agapius’ chronicles, 172–173consequences of identifi cation with

Hermes, 183–184early Christian writings, 164–166Ibn al-<Ibrī’s writing, 142in al-Maqdisī’s writings, 166–167in al-Mas<ūdī’s work, 96in Michael the Elder’s work, 141Middle Persian text, 46, 47n106in al-Mubaššir’s writings, 189, 194,

195–196in Qur>ān, 164, 166in Sā<id al-Andalusī’s writing, 129–130and Theophilus’ writings, 174–175See also Idrīs

1 Enoch, 145, 165–1662 Enoch, 166Enosh, 46Ephraem, 12, 46–47Epistle to the Hebrews, 165etymology interest, Abū Ma<šar’s, 153Eusebius, 98n146, 137, 139, 140–141,

144n106, 151

al-Fārābī, 76–77, 222–223al-Farġānī, Ah mad ibn Muhammad ibn

KaTīr, 150n126Fātimid dynasty, 169fava beans, Harrānian restriction, 96n144al-Fazārī, 29–31Festugière, A.-J., 7, 18, 20Ficino, Marsilio, 5–6, 121, 193Fihrist (an-Nadīm), 31, 75n49, 76, 87n99, 102,

160, 180Fī n-nafs (al-Kindī), 90Firdawsī, 61Flood

in Abū Ma<šar’s chronology, 123, 125–126,149–150

Christian chronicles, 136, 138, 139, 143–144Greek Hermetica, 6in Ibn Nubāta’s writing, 158al-Mubaššir’s writings, 185–186, 194Plessner’s commentary, 135in Sā<id al-Andalusī’s writing, 129, 130in Syncellus’ work, 134–135

four-faced image, in ar-Risāla al-falakīyaal-kubrā, 182–183

Fowden, Garth, 4–5, 7, 13, 18, 84, 133n56Frendo, David, 60Fück, J. W., 79n73

Ga<far, 56–57al-Gāhiz, 167–168, 236ganj ī špyk>n, 38n77Gawāhir al-kilam (ar-Rayh ānī), 211Ġāyat al-hakīm, 100–103, 114, 115GayōmarT, 149GayūmarT, 125, 155, 158Genequand, Charles, 90, 97Genesis, 165, 167Ginza of the Mandaeans, 68n20Gnomologium Vaticanum, 204, 205“Gnostics,” 19n51, 43–44, 46, 47, 58Gordian, 34, 44Gordian III, 37, 45Greek antecedents, wise maxims, 204–206Greek chronology, Abū Ma<šar’s, 150–151Greek Hermetica, Roman Egyptian

antiquity, reception in, 10–13contents summarized, 4–5European reception, 5–10Harrānian Platonic academy debate,

70–79

Index

three Hermeses idea, 132–135See also Corpus Hermeticum; Middle

Persian writingsGrignaschi, Mario, 218n216Gulšān-i rāz (Šabistarī), 232Gündüz, Şinasi, 68Gutas, Dimitri, 10, 76–77, 172n27, 178n56al-Guzgānī, 145–146, 155

Habby, Joseph, 36n67Hadot, Ilsetraut, 70n28, 71, 73n40, 74n44,

75n49, 77n57, 78n70, 85n92al-Hamd, Muhammad <Abdalhamīd, 70n28Hämeen-Anttila, Jaakko, 65n3Hamza al-Isfahānī, 35, 148–149, 150hanīf, meanings, 190–192

See also hunafā>Harrānian pagans

in Agapius’ writings, 173, 174, 175chronological overview, 104–113, 234–235Hermetica infl uence argument, 66,

79–83, 237India connection (putative), 102n170,

115–118Platonic academy controversy, 69–79,

85n92religious practices, 65–66, 68–70, 85–86,

87–88Rome’s Christianity edict, 64–65Sābian name adoption, 66–68as third Hermes legend origin, 161wise maxims linkage, 203–204, 220–222

Harrānian pagans as supposed possessors of Hermetica

overview, 112–114Arabic philosophers, 86–92astrology texts, 92, 100–104and Ġāyat al-hakīm, 100–104al-Mas<ūdī’s writings, 95–99al-Mubaššir’s writings, 94–95, 188–193Porphyry’s Letter to Anebo, 97–100Prophecies of the Pagan Philosophers,

83–85*ābit’s writings, 92–94wise maxims collection, 217–219

Hartman, Sven, 145al-HāriT ibn Sunbāt, 68n20al-Hāšimī, 35n61, 116hašwīya, interpretations, 72n36Hathor temple, 182, 183

¢ayrallāh, Amīn, 177, 178n56heavenly ascent myth, 164–168, 172, 175–177,

180–184, 189, 220, 224, 232, 237Hellenes

in Harrānian academy debate, 72, 73–74Tatian’s Against the Hellenes, 52

Hermes Latinus (Lucentini), 10Hermetica, overview

defi nitions, 17–22, 70and early Arabic scholarship, 14–17Harrānian, 112–114Middle Persian, 24–25Roman Egyptian writings, 4–13summarized, 234–239See also specifi c topics, e.g., Harrānian

entries; three Hermes legends; wise maxims

Hermetism, defi nitions, 17–22, 70Herodian, 59, 60Hexaemeron (Jacob of Edessa), 13hikam. See wise maximsHilāl ibn al-Muhassin, 108–109Himyarites, 73n43¢irad-nāma-yi Sikandarī (Jāmī), 232Historia Naturalis (Pliny the Elder), 49–50History of the Sages (Ibn al-Qiftī), 211, 230Hjärpe, Jan, 68–69, 70n25, 71, 88n104Holden, James, 39Homer, 96, 205Honigmann, E., 142n86horoscopes, Sasanian attribution debate,

39–40Horus, 133hrms spelling, 26hrmys spelling, 26n19Huart, Clément, 167n12Hugo of Santalla, 34n49hunafā>, 85n94¢usrō I, 32, 33, 38Huyse, Philip, 60al-¢wārizmī, Muhammad ibn Ah mad, 118Hymn of the Pearl, 58Hypatia, 47hyrmys spelling, 25

Iamblichus, 8, 8n19, 12, 97Ibn <Abd Rabbih, 179Ibn Abī Usaybi<a, Ah mad ibn al-Qāsim, 35,

124, 151, 229n260Ibn Bāgga, 223

Index

Ibn al-Bāzyār, 142–143Ibn Durayd, 196, 198Ibn al-Gawzī, 109n192Ibn Gubayr, 112Ibn Gulgul, 122, 123–127, 157, 159–160, 162, 179Ibn Habīb, <Abdalmalik, 166Ibn ¢allikān, 69n23Ibn al-HayTam, Abū <Abdallāh, 169, 171n26Ibn Hazm, 87n101Ibn Hazm al-Qurtubī, 188n102Ibn Hibintā, 29n8Ibn ¢urradāDbih, 32n41, 199Ibn al-<Ibrī, 87n100, 91, 93–94, 113, 127–128,

141–142, 144, 235Ibn Kabar, Abū l-Barakāt, 229n260Ibn al-Māzyār, 143Ibn al-Munaggim, Abū <Īsā, 34, 36, 37, 44Ibn Muqla, 105Ibn al-Mu<tazz, 210–211Ibn Nawbaxt, 29, 30–33, 34, 37–38, 49, 79n73,

131–132, 234Ibn Nubāta, Gamāladdīn, 157–160Ibn al-Qiftī, <Alī ibn Yūsuf, 75n49, 91, 93, 113,

118, 124, 154, 211, 230, 235Ibn Qurayš, Šarafaddawla Muslim, 110–111Ibn Qutayba, 34Ibn Sab<īn, 229Ibn Šaddād, 110–112Ibn Sīnā, 222–223Ibn Wahšīya, 75n49Ibrāhīm ibn Hilāl as-Sābi>, See Abū Ishāq

Ibrāhīm ibn HilālIdrīs

in Abū Hatīm’s work, 169–170in Abū Ma<šar’s work, 125, 126, 156–157,

168in al-Bīrūnī’s writing, 117in al-Gahiz’s writing, 155n143in Ibn Nubāta’s writing, 126, 157–158in Ismā<īlī writings, 169–170, 181in al-Maqdisī>s writings, 166–167in the Qur>ān, 164, 166in Sā<id al-Andalusī’s writing, 129–130in aš-Šahrastānī’s writing, 220See also Enoch

Ixwān as-Safā>, 179–180, 222, 227Īlāwus, 186incantation bowls, 25–26India connections, 4, 35n61, 55–57, 115–118,

145–146, 207–210

indriyanigraha, 209–210Iqbāl-nāma (Nizāmī), 231Iranian languages, displacement by Arabic,

23–24Ish āq ibn Hunayn, 199Isis, 133Islam, emergence, 14–15Ismā<īlī movement, 168–171, 180–181, 183, 218,

221–222, 237Išrāqīs, 229al-Istaxrī, Abū Sa<īd, 105Iversen, E., 8n17<Iyād ibn Ġanam, 110

Jacob of Edessa, 13, 91n122, 140–141, 156n147Jāmī, 232Jasnow, Richard, 8Jesus, 46, 136, 139, 180, 185n94Jmn (Ammon), 214Jolivet, Jean, 188n102Julius Caesar, 151, 152

Kāšānī, Bābā Afd aladdīn, 175, 226, 228–229al-Kindī, 86–90, 103, 113, 157, 158, 160–161,

176, 179, 184, 189–190, 235kingship maxims, 201, 208–216Kingsley, Peter, 8n17, 51n132Kitāb Ādāb al-falāsifa (al-Ansārī), 190n105,

201n145Kitāb al-Ādāb (Ibn al-Mu<tazz), 210–211Kitāb al-Amad (al-<Āmirī), 180Kitāb Asrār an-nugūm (Hermes), 27–28, 237Kitāb Asrār as-Sābi>a, 101Kitāb al-ĀTār al-bāqiya (al-Bīrūnī), 92, 117Kitāb al-Bad> wa-t-ta>rīx (Mutahhar),

166–167Kitāb Budd al-<ārif (Ibn Sab<īn), 229Kitāb ad-Dalā>il (Bar Bahlūl), 102n167Kitāb Dalālat al-hā>irīn (ibn Maymūn), 101Kitāb fī Zagr an-nafs (Hermes), 175n41,

226–229Kitāb al-Hādītūs, 101Kitāb Ixbār al-<ulamā> bi-axbār al-hukamā>

(Ibn al-Qiftī), 124Kitāb al-<Ilm al-ilāhī (ar-Rāzī), 100Kitāb al-<Iqd al-farīd (Ibn <Abd Rabbih), 179Kitāb al-Istamāxīs,101, 102, 114, 224Kitāb al-Istamātīs, 101, 178Kitāb al-Lahw wa-l-malāhī (Ibn

¢urradāDbih), 199

Index

Kitāb al-Mawālīd (Zoroaster), 28n26Kitāb al-Milal wa-n-nihal (aš-Šahrastānī),

99, 220–222Kitāb Muxtār al-hikam (al-Mubaššir),

94–95Kitāb al-Muntaxabāt (az-Zawzanī), 124Kitāb Murūg aD-Dahab (al-Mas<ūdī), 96, 117Kitāb Nawāmīs Hirmis, 203Kitāb an-Nhmt>n (Ibn Nawbaxt), 31, 131Kitāb al-Qirānāt (Abū Ma<šar), 142–143Kitāb ar-Radd (Yahūdā ha-Levi), 223Kitāb Sarh al-<uyūn (Ibn Nubāta), 157Kitāb Sirr al-xalīqa, 159, 170–171, 178–181,

182n80, 231Kitāb Tabā>i< al-xalq (Hermes), 178Kitāb Tabaqāt al-atibbā> (Ibn Abī Usaybi<a),

122, 123, 124–125Kitāb al-Tanbīh wa-l-išrāf (al-Mas<ūdī), 117Kitāb at-Tarbī< wa-tadwīr (al-Gahiz),

155n143, 168n15Kitāb Ta>rix ad-duwal (Ibn al-<Ibri), 144Kitāb at-Tuffāha (Book of the Apple),

175–180, 184, 222, 237Kitāb al-Ulūf (Abū Ma<šar),122–123, 183Kitāb <Unsur al-mūsīqā (Paulus), 199Kitāb al-Ustuwwatās, 101, 102Kitāb Yatīmat ad-dahr (aT-*a<ālibī),

96n144Korē Kosmou, 172n27Kraemer, Jörg, 178Kunitzsch, Paul, 22n61, 24, 26n19, 27Kyparissiotes, John, 79n72Kyranis, 17n45, 21n60, 22n61, 237

Lactantius, 12, 133, 198Lameer, Joep, 73, 77n58Latin texts, 5–6, 9–10, 27, 93, 133, 176,

193–196, 229, 236Laws of Hermes, 93Letter to Anebo (Porphyry), 97–98, 99Levy-Rubin, M., 87n101, 221Liber Aristotelis (Hugo of Santalla), 34n49Liber de pomo (Kitāb at-Tuffāha), 176Liber de stellis beibeniis (Hermes), 27Liber philosphorum moralium antiquorum,

193–195Lippman, Edmund O., 48n116Lucentini, Paolo, 10Luke, Gospel of, 185n94Lydus, 43

Magian religion (Zoroastrianism), 23–24, 33,35, 48–54

magical texts, as Sasanian evidence, 25–26magma<, interpretations, 74, 76Māhānkard, 34Mahé, Jean-Pierre, 7, 11n31Mahmūd ibn Zangī, 112Maimonides, 101n165

See also Mūsā ibn MaymūnMalalas, 84al-Ma>mūn, 66, 67, 85, 104, 207Mandaeans, 67–68, 149n124Manetho, 134, 136, 137, 138, 173, 175Mani, 41n87, 42–43, 44n96, 46, 47n106Manichaeans, 12, 42–43, 46–47, 79n72,

102n167Manuscripts

Beinecke Rare Book Library, Salisbury 64,157n154, 158n156–157

Bibliothèque nationale MS arabe 2577,101n160

Bibliothèque nationale MS arabe 2605,57n154

British Library Add. 22,756, 57n154British Library Delhi Arabic 1946,

224n241Chester Beatty Arabic 3027, 190n104Chester Beatty Arabic 5153, 188n102Fatih 3222, 200n143Istanbul University A 6156, 232n274Manısa Genel Kütüphane MS 1705,

199n138Nuru Osmaniye 4931, 175n41, 176n48,

178n58Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz

or. oct. 3256, 28n24Topkapı Saray Ahmet III 3206, 190n104UCLA Biomedical Library Ar. 29,

57n154al-Maqdisī, Mutahhar ibn Tāhir, 166–167Mar Abas, 36n66Mārā Samyā, 102Margoliouth, D. S., 88n104Māšā>allāh, 28n26, 29–30, 34Massignon, Louis, 19n53, 105n180al-Mas<ūdī, 69, 72–75, 76, 95–99, 117, 142, 143,

188n102mathematics, 15, 29n31, 37, 78, 126, 132,

160, 169Mattā ibn Yūnus, 77

Index

medicine<Abbāsid dynasty, 15Abū Ma<šar’s writings, 125, 126, 127in Asclepius, 133Egyptian use of beans, 96n144Greek traditions, 228n256in Ibn Gulgul’s writing, 122in Ibn Nubāta’s writing, 158–159in al-Maqdisī’s writing, 167in Platonic academy debate, 78in Roman Egypt histories, 35, 37in Sā<id al-Andalusī’s writings, 130

Mesopotamia, 32n41Messus, 43Michael (angel), in Book of Enoch, 165–166Michael the Elder, 83, 141, 144n106, 174Middle Persian texts

overview, 24–25, 41n87, 62–63, 234astrology texts, 26–30histories, 30–39, 145horoscopes, 39–40kingship maxims, 215–216loss of, 23–24, 32magical texts, 25–26Ostanes’ books, 48–57Šāpūr period evidence, 12, 41–47wise maxims, 206–207

Miskawayh, Ah mad ibn Muhammad, 201Monnot, Guy, 188n102, 220Montgomery, James A., 25n13Montgomery, James E., 168n15Moses of Chorene, 36n66MS, See Manuscriptsal-Mubaššir ibn Fātik, 94–95, 113, 184–196,

199–203, 205–209, 211–219, 228, 236al-Mudawwar descriptions, 110–112al-Muhallabī, 96n144Muh ammad, 14, 20n58, 168, 180Muh ammad ibn Ismā<īl, 168–169al-Muhassin, 93, 94Muxtār al-hikam (al-Mubaššir), 199–203,

207–208, 222al-Mu<izz, 169Muxtasar Siwān al-hikma (as-Sāwī),

200–201, 208Muntaxab Siwān al-hikma, 36–37, 127,

128–129, 152–153, 200, 201–203, 204,227–228

al-Muqtadir, 104–105al-Murtad ā, 35n63

Mūsā ibn Maymūn, 101, 219Mushaf al-Gamā<a, 231Mushaf al-hunafā>, 100music, 199al-Mu<tadid, 89n107Mutahhar ibn Tāhir al-Maqdisī, 166–167De mysteriis Aegyptiorum (Iamblichus), 8,

12, 97–98, 99, 214

Nabataean Agriculture (Ibn Wah šīya), 65n3,75n49, 96n144

Naburizbānī, 126an-Nadīm, 31, 77, 87, 142, 156, 160, 180Nag< Hammādī, 9, 46Nallino, Carlo, 27Naqš-i Ragab, 61Naqš-i Rustam, 61Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, 19n53Naveh, Joseph, 25n13Neoplatonism, 42Nicotheus, 43, 46, 47Nimrod son of Kush, 126Niz āmī, 153, 231–232Nöldeke, Theodor, 48n116Numayrid dynasty, 109–110, 111

On Houses of Worship (Abū Ma<šar), 82On the Letter Omega (Zosimus), 47On the Letter Theta (Zosimus), 53Oration against the Hellenes (Tatian), 52Orpheus, 84, 188n102Osron, 48–49, 53, 56Ostanes, 47–57

Palfreyman, Thomas, 195Panodorus, 137–138, 139, 151, 155parchment amulet, as Sasanian evidence,

25, 26Parthia, 58, 59Patteg, 46Paulus (Byzantine author), 199Pearl, Hymn of the, 58Pebechius, 48–49, 53, 56Pentateuch (Dorotheus), 131The Perfect Discourse (Asclepius), 12, 133Persian Empire, 14, 23Persian texts, 145–146, 227, 230–232

See also Middle Persian textsPhaedo (Plato), 175–176, 179, 180n67, 205, 214Philip the Macedonian, era of, 150

Index

Philocomus, 43philosophers, Arabic, treatment of Hermes,

220–233, 237–238philosophers at Harrānian academy, theory

of, 72–74physical descriptions, Hermes, 187, 190Physika kai Mystika (Bolus), 52pillar/books legend, Ostanes, 52Pingree, David (writing on)

Abū Ma<šar’s chronology, 125, 147, 152,168n16

Andalusian magic text, 100, 102n167Annianus, 143Harrānians, 66n8, 79n73, 81–82, 88n106,

103India connection, 102n170, 115–117al-Mas<ūdī, 96n139Middle Persian writings, 24, 27–28, 39–40three Hermeses origins, 122n4, 131–132

Platoin as-Suhrawardī’s writing, 224in De mysteriis Aegyptiorum, 98in al-Gāhiz, 168n15in Harrānian academy debate, 72, 74–75,

78in Kitāb at-Tuffāha, 177–178in Nizāmī’s poetry, 231in Porphyry’s work, 99in pseudo-Zoroastrian writings, 43in Syriac Prophecies of the Pagan

Philosophers, 84and Thoth, 132–133, 214and wise maxims of Hermes, 175–176,

204–205Platonic academy debate, Harrānian pagans,

69–79Plessner, Martin, 40n86, 101, 135, 147n119, 196Pliny the Elder, 49–50Plotinus, 42, 43–45, 84, 181n70, 220n224poets, 12, 46–47, 107–108, 173, 231–232Poimandres, 84Poimandres, 172n27Porphyry, 42, 43–45, 46, 84, 97–98, 99, 231Procopius, 73n43Prophecies of the Pagan Philosophers (ed.

Brock), 11–12, 83–84prophet identity, Hermes

overview, 164Christian writings, 85–86and Enoch identifi cation, 183–184

in Ibn Nubāta’s writing, 157–159Ismā<īlī movement, 169–171, 180–181Manichaean view, 12and philosopher treatment, 223–233See also Harrānian entries; heavenly

ascent mythPsellus, 80Pseudo-Apollonius, 198Pseudo-Callisthenes, 214Pseudo-Justin, 11–12, 198Ptolemy, 28, 38, 42, 134, 135, 150, 151, 153, 180pyramids, 128–129, 158Pythagoras, 84, 92, 98, 126, 180, 205, 225

al-Qādī, Wadād, 200n141al-Qāhir, 105Qānūn-i mas<ūdī (al-Bīrūnī), 145–146Quod idola dii non sint (Cyprian), 47Qur>ān, 20, 164, 166, 191, 192Quwayrā, 77

ar-Rādī, 105De radiis (al-Kindī), 103ar-Rašīd, 31ar-Rayh ānī, <Alī ibn <Ubayda, 207, 211ar-Rāzī, Abū Bakr Muh ammad ibn

Zakariyyā>, 98–99, 100–101, 170ar-Rāzī, Abū Hātim, 169–170The Rebuke of the Soul (Hermes), 226–229Reeves, John C., 102n167Reitzenstein, Richard, 18, 24n7religious practices, Hermes’ teachings

in al-Mubaššir’s writings, 186–188,190–193, 194, 202–204, 219

in Rebuke of the Soul, 226–228See also wise maxims

Republic (Plato), 204Res Rustica (Columella), 51revelation, Ismā<īlī teachings, 169–170Rhetorius, 27ar-Risāla al-falakīya al-kubrā (Hermes),

181–183Roman Empire, 14, 58–59, 64–65, 150–151

See also Greek Hermetica, Roman Egypt

Rosenthal, Franz, 83n85, 87n99, 190n104, 193,196, 198–199

Rowson, Everett, 88n104, 144n106Rudolph, Ulrich, 170n23Ruska, Julius, 24n7

Index

Sābians, designations of, 66–68, 96See also Harrānian entries

Šabistarī, Mah mūd-i, 232Šābuhragān, 42Sachau, Eduard, 143Sachs, A. J., 143Sā<id al-Andalusī, 117, 129–130Šāhnāma (Firdawsī), 61aš-Šahrastānī, 99, 201, 205, 220–222aš-Šahrazūrī, 128, 201, 229Šahristānīhā ī Ērān, 35Sa<īd ibn al-Husayn, 169Sa<īd ibn ¢urāsānxwarrah, 34n47Salaman, Clement, 11n31Šānāq, See CānakyaSanskrit connections, 55–57, 115–118, 207–210Santillana, D., 176n48Šāpūr I

and Mani, 42–43ruling period, 23testimonies from age of, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36,

37, 38–39third century evidence, 41–47

as-Saraxsī, 77, 86–87, 188–189, 219Sasanian tradition, overview, 25, 234

See also Middle Persian writingsSasanid dynasty, 23, 59–62Saulnierin, Sébastien-Louis, 182as-Sāwī, <Umar ibn Sahlān, 200sciences

in Abū Ma<šar chronology, 125–126in Harrānian academy debate, 76–79and heavenly ascent myth, 172histories, 229–230in Ibn Nubāta’s writings, 158–159Ismā<īlī teachings, 169–170, 171, 180as Middle Persian tradition, 31–38, 234in al-Mubaššir’s biography of

Hermes, 194Ostanes’ books, 49–57pearl legend allusion, 58in Sā<id al-Andalusī’s writing, 129–130

Scott, W., 11, 80–81, 89, 188n102, 198, 227n254scribes in Sasanian Middle Persian, 41n87“Secrets of the S ābians,” 101The Secrets of the Stars (Hermes), 27–28, 237Sem, 46Šem<ōn Barqāyā, 140–141Seth, 185, 188, 193, 217

seven doors stories, 49, 54–56Sezgin, Fuat, 22n61, 48n116Shaked, Shaul, 25n13, 38n77, 206n175Shaki, Mansour, 38n77Shem, 46as-Sigzī, 105n180Simplicius, 75n49, 79n72Sinān ibn *ābit, 93–95, 104–105, 203–204,

218–219Sirāg al-mulūk (at-Turtūšī), 208Sirr al-asrār, 216Sirr al-xalīqa. See Kitāb Sirr al-xalīqaSiwān al-hikma, 199–200, 205, 222Socrates, 74n46, 176–178, 205, 214, 231Socrates of Constantinople, 98n146Solon, 89, 92Spanish translation of al-Mubaššir, 193Stern, S. M., 37Stobaean Anthology, 9, 84, 198, 215n208Strohmaier, Gotthard, 88n104as-Suhrawardī, Šihābaddīn Yahyā, 223–226aš-Šuštarī, 229as-Suyūtī, 128Syncellus, George, 48n112, 51, 126n25, 133–134,

135, 136, 137–138, 144n106, 151, 174n35Synesius, 12, 47, 50Syriac writings

alchemy texts, 48, 53–54, 56as chronicles, 140–142parchment amulet, 25, 26pearl legend, 58poetry, 46–47Prophecies of the Pagan Philosophers, 12,

83–84See also Jacob of Edessa, Theophilus of

Edessa

aT-*a<ālibī, 127, 215–216Tabaqāt-i Nāsirī (al-Guzganī), 145–146“Tabarī” (talisman expert), 100at-Tabarī, <Umar ibn al-Farruxān, 28–29, 30,

100n57*ābit ibn Qurra (and family), 65, 68–69,

77–78, 80, 82, 89, 92–95, 191–192,234–235

Table of Kings (Ptolemy), 151Tabula Smaragdina, 24n7, 178at-Tā>i<, 105–106aT-*a<labī, 35n63

Index

Talismanic Pseudo-Aristotlian Hermetica (TPAH), 179

Tansar-Nāma, 35Tardieu, Michel, 69–77Tat, 91, 95, 133, 198, 201Tāt, 95, 185, 201, 217Tatian, 52at-Tawhīdī, 204Tertullian, 11Testament to Ammon (Hermes), 195,

211–217, 230Thales, 97n146, 98Theodore Abū Qurra, 79n72, 85–86, 113,

164, 234Theodosius I, 64Theology of Aristotle, 220n224, 227Theon, 12Theophanes, 174Theophilus of Edessa, 30, 34, 37, 173–175Theosophia (Tübingen Theosophy), 84Thoth (Theuth), 4, 8, 132, 134, 214three Hermes legends, Abū Ma<šar’s role

overview, 161–163, 235Christian writings, 135–147, 154chronological context, 152–154Greek writings, 132–135in Ibn Gulgul’s writings, 122–129, 131in Ibn Nubāta’s writings, 131–132,

157–161in Sā<id al-Andalusī’s writings, 129–130

Timaeus (Plato), 99Torah, 148–149Toral-Niehoff, Isabel, 22n61Tōsar (Tansar), 33Treatise of Morall Phylosophie (Baldwin),

195–196Tuffi n, Paul, 134n59at-Tuġrā>ī, 183Turfan evidence, 46, 47n106Turnebus, Adrianus, 6at-Turtūšī, Abū Bakr, 208–209, 210

<Ubaydallāh ibn Ahmad, 56–57Udjahor-resnet, 53Ujjain, 57Ullmann, Manfred, 22n61, 57, 170n23Umayyad dynasty, 14–15Ūrānī, 185, 186, 188, 193, 217Uriel and Enoch, 166

Vałaršak, 36n66Valens, 92, 231Valerian, 44n96Vallat, Philippe, 74n44Vereno, Ingolf, 181, 183

Wahb ibn Munabbih, 156, 167Walbridge, John, 19n52, 70n28Watchers legend, 145–146, 166n9Watts, Edward, 84WaTTāb an-Numayrī, 109, 110Weisser, Ursula, 22n61, 170n23Wiesehöfer, Josef, 61n175Winter, Engelbert, 61wise maxims

overview, 196–197, 199–200, 236appropriation of, 220–223Arabic citations, 197–204Greek antecedents, 204–206Harrānian origins hypothesis,

217–219Ibn al-Mu<tazz’s adaptations, 210–211Latin versions, 196al-Mubaššir’s texts, 95, 184–185, 211–219Persian sources, 206–207Sanskrit sources, 207–210

Witakowski, Witold, 140n76Wīwanghān, 125, 153

Xanthus of Lydia, 49Xerxes, 49–50, 53

Yahūdā ha-Levi, 223Yahyā ibn aš-Šātir, 110–111Yahyā ibn ¢ālid, Abū Bakr, 57Yahya ibn ¢ālid ibn Barmak, 207Yahyā ibn Sa<īd, 110–111Yamamoto, Keiji, 160Yar-Shater, Ehsan, 61n175Yates, Frances A., 104n176Yazdānzādag, 26Yazīdād, 25–26Yūnānī, meaning of, 73–74

Zachariae, Theodor, 209Zaehner, R. C., 33n44Zakeri, Mohsen, 201n145, 210–211Zarathushtra, 41n87

See also Zoroaster

Index

Zauzich, Karl-Theodor, 8az-Zawzanī, 124, 230Zayd ibn Arqam, 167Zeno, 205Ziai, Hossein, 226n247Zimmerman, F. W., 170n23

Zoroaster, 28n26, 43–44, 46, 47, 50, 149See also Zarathushtra

Zoroastrianism, See Magian religionZosimus, 12, 47, 48, 53, 57Zostrianus, 43, 44n96, 46Zuqnin Chronicle, 79n72